




CoDviMhl F^^/'^^ ^ 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSHV 


ROMAN CONTEMPORAIN 

REALISTS 

VOL. Ill 


c 


LUDOVIC HALEVY 



LY 


PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE BARRIE & SON, PUBLISHERS 




r, 


• i 














i 


A 











CHEFS D’OEUVRE 

DU 

ROMAN CONTEMPORAIN 


REALISTS 


N OF THIS EDITION, 

PRINTED ON JAPANESE VELLUM PAPER, 
ONLY ONE THOUSAND COMPLETE COPIES ARE 


PRINTED FOR SALE 


THE REALISTS 

LUDOVIC HALEVY 
THE CARDINAL FAMILY 








• ' ■ * 




j ■ 

I. • 



’> , 



-/ •• 

‘)K 













1 


.. N 




^ P, 


ivr . ^ 


I 


1' 


-I 


< I 


, / 

V 


\ 





/ 

I 


I 


/ 


I , 


i 


t 


1 


I 


I 


V- 


lA 1 • 


I. 




ROMAN CONTEMPORAIN 


LUDOVIC HALEVY 

t I 

THE CARD IN A L FA MIL Y 
TWENTY-SEVEN ETCHINGS 



lfiARa7l8?7 


PHILADELPHIA 
PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY 
GEORGE BARRIE & SON 


‘ - 2 - 7 

^.y/V2/ a 





THIS EDITION OF THE 


CARDINAL FAMILY 

HAS BEEN COMPLETELY TRANSLATED 

\ 

BY 

GEORGE B. IVES 


THE ETCHINGS ARE BY 

LOUIS MULLER 

AND DRAWINGS BY 


CHARLES LUCIEN LEANDRE 









THE 


CARDINAL FAMILY 















MADAME CARDINAL 



I 


9 







I 






I 

'"■i. 





» 

t 


- v 



MADAME CARDINAL 


In the evening of May 6 , 1870, a stout lady, 
carelessly dressed, with an old plaid shawl over 
her shoulders, and huge silver spectacles on her 
nose, was standing perfectly still, leaning against a 

post in the wings at the Opera, with her great, 

5 


6 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


wide-open, melting eyes fixed on the stage as if in a 
trance. They were playing Gounod’s Faust. The 
young women of the corps de ballet were danc- 
ing the waltz of the kermesse about Marguerite ; 
and the ladies of the chorus, drawn up in line 
against the scenery, with arms hanging at their sides, 
were singing with an air of listless resignation : 

Que la valse nous entraine ! 

Faisons retentir la plaine 

Du bruit de nos chansons ! 

Valsons ! 

Je respire ^ peine ! 

Ah ! quel plaisir ! etc., etc. 

I approached the stout lady and tapping her from 
behind upon the shoulder, I said : 

“ Good-evening, Madame Cardinal, How goes 
everything ?” 

“ Not so bad, not so bad, thank you.” 

“ And your daughters ?” 

“ The little ones are well, too.” 

“ Do they dance to-night ?” 

“ Pauline does, not Virginie. Don’t you see 
Pauline over yonder ? She has on a blue dress 
with white stripes.” 


MADAME CARDINAL 


7 


“ Pauline’s getting to be very pretty, do you 
know it?” 

“ Yes, it’ll be the same way with her as with 
Virginie; an ugly little thing up to thirteen, Virginie 
was, and then, all of a sudden, she began to 
improve.” 

“And improved mightily, too. She’s the pret- 
tiest girl at the Opera to-day.” 

“ Oh ! no, not the prettiest. I haven’t any 
maternal blindness. Marie Fernot’s better looking 
than Virginie.” 

“ And Pauline, how old is she now ?” 

“ She’s close on fifteen.” 

“ Fifteen ! how she does grow ! It seems to me I 
can see her still, no taller than that, among the little 
urchins in Guillaume Tell^ in the air, on the bridge 
and up above the torrent, during the ballet.” 

“ Yes, she’s fifteen. She’s in the first quadrille 
and she’ll be a coryphee at the first examination, 
I’m almost sure. In the first place, the manager 
chucked her under the chin the other day as he 
passed, and he don’t chuck everybody under the 
chin, you know.” 


8 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ Fifteen years old ! I can’t realize it — And 
there’s nobody as yet, I hope, is there, Madame 
Cardinal ?” 

“ Oh ! no, nobody, nobody ! God knows it’s not 
for lack of proposals. There have been lots of ’em 
after her already. First and foremost, there’s that 

Monsieur N , who’s hardly ever out of the 

house, but the little one can’t endure him ; and then 
I haven’t the heart to be rough with her ; besides 
that isn’t the part for a mother to play.” 

“You have a kind heart.” 

“ Oh ! as to my heart ! At all events, what’s the 
use of being in a hurry, tell me that ? The little one 
will be even prettier next year than she is now.” 

“ And what about Virginie ? Still Monsieur 
Paul?” 

“ Monsieur Paul ? What, don’t you know ? 
Where have you been ?” 

“I am just from Russia. I have been in St. 
Petersburg three months.” 

“ Sure enough, it seems like a century since we 
had the pleasure of seeing you. I was saying as 
much day before yesterday to Monsieur Cardinal. 


MADAME CARDINAL 


9 


Well, much has happened within three months. 
It’s all over with Monsieur Paul !” 

“ All over with him ! why, what has happened ?” 

“ An accident, God knows ! nothing else.” 

“ An accident ! Tell me about it !” 

“ Gladly — but here’s the end of the act. We 
shall be in the way of the scene-shifters. Come 
over here in this little corner at the left.” 

I docilely followed the respectable Madame Car- 
dinal, and this is what she told me, in the little 
corner at the left : 

“ Monsieur Paul, you know, had a mania for 
being always on the go ; he was always off some- 
where or other, and one fine morning early in 
February, he said to me : 

“ ‘ I’m going home to Bourgogne for three days 
to look after some business.’ 

**That same day — there’s a fatality about some 
things ! — lo and behold a young fellow who hadn’t 
been to my house for weeks and months, comes to 
call on us. His name is Crochard and he acts at 
the Porte-Saint-Martin. Do you know him ? No ? 
I’m not surprised at that. He only plays odds and 


lO 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


ends, but he’s a boy with a good physique and some 
talent ; sooner or later he’ll certainly make his mark. 

“ Well, he comes and he says to us : 

“‘Will you come to the Porte-Saint- Martin to- 
night? I play one of the noblemen in Lucrece 
Borgia. I have brought you four seats.’ 

“ There was no performance at the Opera that 
night and no rehearsal, so we replied : 

“ ‘ That will be first-rate.’ 

“ So we went to the play. Well ! Crochard had 
mighty little to say ; but for all that he made out 
to make a hit; fine voice and good delivery, and 
a handsome costume — all trickery, you know. For 
my own part, I was carried away with him : 

“ ‘ Oh ! how handsome he is ! Oh ! how well he acts !’ 

“ Virginie never said a word. I ought to have 
mistrusted something, but I was stupid that night, I 
didn’t see anything, and yet, God knows ! I’m not 
overburdened with innocence. 

“ The next day, at four o’clock, I was alone with 
Virginie and she was mending her dancing-pumps, 
when the bell rang ; I went to the door ; it was 
Crochard again. 


MADAME CARDINAL 


I 


“ He came in, and said : 

“ ‘ Did you enjoy yourselves ?’ 

“ ‘ Did we enjoy ourselves !’ 

“ And then we talked. 

“After a quarter of an hour or so, I was 
obliged to go out; we were going to have com- 
pany to dinner and we must have a fish. I went 
out; I came back; Virginie was very red and so 
was Crochard. I didn’t remember that till later. 

“ The next day but one Monsieur Paul returned 
from Bourgogne, and while he was in the house a 
letter came for Virginie. I, like a fool, went into 
the room with the letter in my hand. 

“ There was • Monsieur Paul in an easy-chair and 
Virginie standing by the hearth. 

“ ‘ Virginie,’ I said, * here’s a letter for you. I 
don’t know the writing.’ 

“I supposed it was some declaration or other 
and I knew Monsieur Paul liked to read that kind 
of letter ; there was no reason why we shouldn’t 
show them to him, for we had decided before that 
to refuse everybody else in favor of Monsieur Paul. 

“ But Virginie took the letter, opened it and cried : 


12 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


Ah ! it’s from him !’ 

“ What could you expect ? the child said that 
involuntarily; and then, when she saw Monsieur Paul 
get up out of his chair, she gave a little shriek and 
fainted. The letter fell to the floor, and Monsieur 
Paul pounced on it Oh ! I don’t blame him ; in his 
place Pd have done the same. He read the letter at 
a glance, and then I saw him tranquilly pick up his 
hat and gloves. 

“I was busy looking after Virginie, who was 
lying out stiff in an easy-chair. 

“ ‘ Well, what’s the matter ?’ I said to Monsieur 
Paul. 

“ ‘ That’s the matter,’ he replied, handing me the 
letter, and he left the room. I ought to say that 
he sent Virginie ten thousand francs that night. 
Oh ! yes, one must be just, and Monsieur Paul 
acted like a gentleman. 

“ You can imagine that I didn’t bother about the 
letter. I was looking after Virginie. 

At last she opened her eyes. 

“ ‘ Oh ! mamma ! mamma !’ 

^“Well, what is it?’ 


MADAME CARDINAL 


13 


‘ Oh ! mamma ! that letter — ’ 

“ ‘ Well, what of the letter ?’ 

“ ‘ It’s from Crochard, mamma.’ 

“ ‘ Well, what about Crochard ?’ 

“ ‘ Oh ! if you knew, the other day — ’ 

“ ‘ What day ?’ 

“ ‘ While you had gone to buy the fish.’ 

“ ‘ Well, what happened while I went to buy the 
fish ? what ? what ? what ?’ 

“ ‘ Why, yes,' mamma, yes — What do you sup- 
pose ! He acted like a madman !’ 

“ And with that, lo and behold my imbecile fainted 
again. 

‘ Come, come,’ said I, ' no nonsense ; it’s a pity, 
but health comes first of all. How came you to 
do such a foolish thing, and what does that wretched 
stroller write to you ?’ 

“ Ah ! my dear monsieur, he wrote things that 
showed that Virginie had been running after him 
since that crazy performance. He apologized for 
not coming again ; he had to rehearse during the 
day and act at night ; and he thee- and thoued her 
and called her ‘ his dove,’ and his ^ adored angel ’ — 


14 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


and he ended by saying that he would be alone at 
his rooms on Rue de Paris, Belleville, at four o’clock 
the next day. Outrageous, eh ? And Virginie would 
have had to take to bad courses for — Do you 
understand that ? 

“ I gave Virginie the letter. 

“ ‘ Here, read me this ; he’s making fun of you ; 
and you didn’t run away from him and the result is 
that Monsieur Paul’s gone.’ 

“ ‘ Oh ! I don’t care about Monsieur Paul’ 

“ ‘ More nonsense ! Come, get up and walk 
round the room ; you look like a corpse. Ah ! 
Pd have given you a couple of good whacks, 
and more too, if you hadn’t thought best to faint ; 
but, I say again, health before everything ! You 
feel better, don’t you ? Good. Well, now you 
must sit down and write to Monsieur Paul to ask 
his pardon.’ 

“ ‘ No ! no ! no !’ 

“ She wouldn’t give in. On the contrary, the next 
day she’d have liked to sneak out and go to her 
Crochard ; but Monsieur Cardinal and I kept a 
sharp lookout. 


MADAME CARDINAL 


15 


“ She undertook to rebel, but she got nothing by 
it except the two cuffs postponed from the day 
before ; and all Crochard had to amuse him at four 
o’clock was a fine letter from Monsieur Cardinal. 

“ I can’t remember all of it, but I know it began 
like this : * Monsieur, an indignant father replies to 
your favor of the, — etc.’ 

“ At last Crochard subsided and Virginie seemed 
to have given up thinking of him. Meanwhile, 
not a word from Monsieur Paul except the ten 
thousand francs. That was something, you’ll say. 
From time to time I spoke to Virginie about writing 
to Monsieur Paul. 

“ She always answered : 

“ ‘ Yes, to send back the ten thousand francs.’ 

“ So I didn’t insist. Then I had an idea of writ- 
ing to Monsieur Paul myself I consulted Monsieur 
Cardinal, and he said : 

“ ‘ There’s something to be said on both sides ; 
but, all things considered, it isn’t a mother’s place 
to interfere. No, no, Pll write myself But don’t 
you be afraid : I won’t mention Virginie’s name ; it 
shall be a letter from man to man; Pll tell Monsieur 


i6 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


Paul I am very sorry that our relations should be 
broken off by an occurrence I had nothing to do 
with, etc., etc.’ 

“ So he wrote. No reply. A month passed like 
that, and we were very lonesome. 

“You know how it is when you’re used to hav- 
ing company. Monsieur Cardinal was especially 
unhappy ; he kept saying from morning till night : 

“ ‘ How gloomy the house is ! How much of the 
time we’re alone !’ 

“ He went to the cafe in the evening instead of 
staying at home with his family as he used to when 
Monsieur Paul used to come. 

“ T^ey didn’t know about the Crochard affair at 
the Opera, but they saw it was all off with Monsieur 
Paul ; so, then, naturally enough — don’t you think 
so ? — a number of gentlemen began to hang around 
Virginie. The one who made himself most con- 
spicuous in that way was the Marquis Cavalcanti. 
Do you know him ? He often speaks of you in the 
kindest terms. 

“ Virginie had nothing to say either to the marquis 
or any of the others. She kept her sad looks all 


MADAME CARDINAL 


17 



the time, she grew thin and pale and didn’t seem to 
have any strength at all ; she couldn’t stand half a 
minute on her toes at her morning lesson ; and you 
know what toes she used to have — why I think she 
could have stood on her toes all the time. 

“‘Come, my child,’ I’d say to her, ‘you mustn’t 
go on like this, you must lead a different life.’ 

“ ‘ Oh 1 mamma, they bore me so, all, all of 
them !’ 

“ At last she received a letter from the marquis 
one day and passed it over to me : 

“ ‘ Here, mamma, read this.’ 

“ It was magnificent ! it was too good to be true ! 
You’ll see why in a minute. 

“ I said to Virginie : 

“ ‘ He’s a man that knows what’s what ; that’s 
plain. But do you love him ?’ 

“ ‘ Oh ! mamma, love him ! How do you suppose 
I can love him ? But, on my word, he or some- 
body else, it’s all one to me. And, do you know, 
as long as I’ve got to take someone. I’d rather take 
someone I don’t love. It would be too hard with 
the others.’ 



i8 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“And with that she began crying again like 
a fountain. Would you ever have believed 
that, monsieur? She was still thinking of that 
Crochard ! 

“ ‘ Come, my angel, pull yourself together,’ I 
said. ‘ There’s no hurry. Let’s not say any more 
about the marquis. We’ll talk it over to-morrow.’ 

“ ^ No, no, mamma, let’s get it over with at once. 
He’s ugly, he’s absurd. I’m sure I shall never love 
him. He’s the man for me !’ 

“ And, touch and go I she wrote to him and gave 
me the letter to send. 

“ Faith ! I was embarrassed, and, as I do in all 
great emergencies, I went and consulted Monsieur 
Cardinal. 

“ ‘ It isn’t proper for Virginie to write to this man 
whom she doesn’t know,’ he said ; ' no, that wouldn’t 
be proper. I’ll write myself’ 

“He began to write, and every now and then 
he’d stop and say to me : 

“ ‘ This isn’t a very easy letter to write, Madame 
Cardinal, but I’ll write it all the same.’ 

“ And he did write it, and wrote it well, too. 


MADAME CARDINAL 


19 


“ Ah ! I tell you, Monsieur Cardinal has lots of 
tact in delicate places. He never mentioned 
Virginie, he always deals with things, as I told you, 
from man to man. 

“ The next day the marquis arrived. 

“It’s always hard to break the ice at the first 
interview ; but the marquis was very clever and very 
dignified and he found a roundabout way of leading 
up to what he had to say. 

“ ' Well,’ said he, ‘ how are we going to arrange 
our little existence ?’ 

“ I answered him : 

“ ‘Why, what are your plans. Monsieur le Marquis?’ 

“Then he began to tell us his plans. Horrors, 
downright horrors ! Just fancy, he wanted to pay 
Monsieur Cardinal and me a little pension and set 
up housekeeping with Virginie in his house on 
Boulevard de la Reine-Hortense. 

“ Oh ! my word ! you ought to have seen Mon- 
sieur Cardinal ! he was superb ! A father’s dignity, 
I tell you what ! 

“ ‘ Monsieur le Marquis,’ said he, ‘ understand this : 
nothing can induce us to part from Virginie ; and 


20 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


rather than let her go from here without ourselves, 
Madame Cardinal and I would be reconciled for the 
rest of our lives to the most modest fare : soup and 
meat and not a grain of salt with it. Besides, what 
is Virginie’s desire ? To live with her parents. She’s 
a wise girl, and hasn’t any false ideas of grandeur.’ 

“He was fairly started and would have gone on 
like that for nobody knows how long, but Virginie 
cut him short : 

“ ^ Papa is right, monsieur,’ said she, ‘ we’re used 
to living together and you mustn’t try to part us.’ 

“‘Why, just as you please, mademoiselle, just as 
you please, for my heart — ’ 

“ That was too much for Monsieur Cardinal ! 
He stood up, pale with rage : 

“ ‘ None of that talk before me. Monsieur le 
Marquis, those things don’t concern me !’ 

“ ‘ But I must come to some understanding with 
mademoiselle your daughter,’ the marquis replied. 

“ ‘ I don’t know what you mean ! Besides, I have 
an appointment at four o’clock and I am late now. 
I must go, I must leave you, but with the hope that 
I can properly say au revoir and not adieti. 


MADAME CARDINAL 


21 


‘‘ ‘ I most earnestly hope so, Monsieur Cardinal’ 

“ ‘ Au revoir, then, Monsieur le Marquis.’ 

“ And Monsieur Cardinal went away, without hav- 
ing compromised his dignity a single instant, as you 
see. 

“ As soon as Monsieur Cardinal was out of the 
way, the marquis and I very soon came to terms. 

As to Virginie, she never made a sound or 
showed any more interest than if we’d been talking 
about the discovery of America. It all seemed to 
be as indifferent to her as nothing at all ; to be sure 
we didn’t need her, for the moment. 

“ So it was agreed, between the marquis and me, 
that he should hire a large apartment, large enough 
for the whole of us. At first the marquis proposed 
to take us all into his house, but I told him 
Monsieur Cardinal would never agree to that ; and 
I seized that opportunity to describe Monsieur 
Cardinal’s character; that he was a great stickler 
for honor and respect and consideration before 
everything; that we must save appearances at 
any cost ; that, to do that, two doors and two 
staircases were necessary, so that there shouldn’t 


22 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


be any disagreeable meetings at unseasonable 
hours. 

“ The marquis understood it all as well as could 
be ; the very next morning he began his search for 
apartments, and by noon they were found. That’s 
where we’re living now — Rue Pigalle. Monsieur 
Cardinal likes the old quarters of Paris. We are 
very comfortable there, and you can come and see 
us. Salon and dining-room in the middle ; at the 
right, our rooms. Monsieur Cardinal’s and Pauline’s 
and mine ; at the left, Virginie’s and the marquis’s. 
Two doors and two staircases. The marquis did his 
best to induce Monsieur Cardinal and me to take the 
rooms on the main staircase side ; but Monsieur Car- 
dinal refused, with his usual tact. Tact is his strong 
point, you know. We took the servants’ staircase. 

“You see how well arranged it all is; and yet, 
my dear monsieur, we’re not as happy as you might 
think. There are moments when I regret Monsieur 
Paul. Ah ! Monsieur Paul was very fond of me ! 
He used to take me to the theatre all the time, and 
those nights he hired orchestra chairs for Monsieur 
Cardinal, who would never consent, you know, to 


MADAME CARDINAL 


23 


show himself in the same box as — It’s all very dif- 
ferent with the marquis. He’s forever trying to keep 
me away from Virginie. 

“ That isn’t all, either. The marquis and Monsieur 
Cardinal don’t agree upon anything — literature, poli- 
tics, religious intolerance or anything else ; and so 
they’re disputing all day long. Cavalcanti has on 
his card : ' Honorary Chamberlain to — to — ’ oh ! 
some one of the petty princes that lost their jobs 
after Solferino ; he’s against progress, and for the 
nobles and the priests ; you see he hasn’t much of a 
chance to agree with Monsieur Cardinal, who hasn’t 
any love for kings or Jesuits. That’s how it hap- 
pens that we have such scenes, and sometimes we 
do have terrible ones. 

'‘Take our dinner on Good Friday, a fortnight 
ago, for example — that was a drama, a real drama ! 
In the first place, I must tell you that Monsieur 
Cardinal said on Holy Thursday, just to tease the 
marquis : 

“ ‘ I suppose you’ll give us a good saddle of mut- 
ton to-morrow, Madame Cardinal’ 

“ At that the marquis simply said to me : 


24 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“‘You know, Madame Cardinal, I don’t eat meat 
to-morrow.’ 

“ ‘ And I,’ Monsieur Cardinal retorted, for he’s 
always bound to have the last word, ‘propose to 
eat a good saddle of mutton to-morrow. Good 
Friday !’ 

“ The marquis didn’t say anything, and it ended 
there. Monsieur Cardinal was fuming internally. 
He had meant to get up a quarrel. He likes to 
have the last word, but he also likes to have some- 
body try to take it from him, for without that, 
where’s the pleasure ? 

“ The next day was the famous dinner, half meat, 
half fish ; the saddle of mutton at one end, the cod- 
fish at the other. That was certain to breed trouble. 
To cap the climax, just as we were sitting down to 
the table, Alphonse must go and put his foot in it. 
Alphonse is our manservant. We have a manservant 
now ! And this is what he did. The marquis sub- 
scribes to the Gazette de France^ Monsieur Cardinal 
subscribes to the Marseillaise. Alphonse made a 
mistake and handed the Gazette de France to Mon- 
sieur Cardinal and the Marseillaise to the marquis ! 


MADAME CARDINAL 


25 


“ ^ Monsieur le Marquis/ says Monsieur Cardinal, 
‘ here’s your vile Gazette de France /’ 

“ ‘ Monsieur Cardinal,’ says the marquis with a 
smile, ‘ here’s your delightful Marseillaise F 

''Delightful! That was sarcasm, you under- 
stand. There is nothing that irritates Monsieur 
Cardinal so much as sarcasm ; he often says it’s 
the Italian’s weapon, and that they have a way of 
their own of handling it. 

“ After the newspapers were exchanged, there 
was a moment’s silence ; then we began to talk, and 
from one thing to another finally got to the Council. 
At that Monsieur Cardinal blazes up like tinder 
and declares that all these Jesuit intrigues are 
outrageous, that Rome belongs to the Italians, that 
France hasn’t any part in it, and down with the Pope, 
and down with the Jesuits, and long live United Italy, 
et cetera^ et cetera — in fact, a long harangue, ending 
with the words : ‘ All the priests are canaille ! ’ 

The marquis went on eating his codfish with- 
out a word. That was more sarcasm, his silence ! 
Then it occurs to me that it’s my duty as a wife to 
back up Monsieur Cardinal, so I begins : 


26 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


‘ Answer Monsieur Cardinal at once, by some- 
thing besides contempt No more sarcastic silence, 
do you hear ?’ 

“ At that the marquis loses patience, gets up out 
of his chair and says : 

“ ‘ Monsieur Cardinal,’ says he, ‘ I beg you not 
to use such language, especially on such a day.’ 

“ ‘ Nobody can prevent my saying what I think 
and all I think,’ retorts Monsieur Cardinal ; ‘ they’re 
canaille y I say it again and I’ll back up what I say !’ 

“ ‘ Monsieur Cardinal, I forbid you to attack my 
religion ; I am a Catholic and there are two bishops 
in my family. I forbid you, do you hear ?’ 

“ What do you think of that ? I began to lose 
my temper. 

“ ‘ You dare to say : “ I forbid you ” to Monsieur 
Cardinal ! when you’re in his house, at his fireside, 
sitting at his table ! This is too much ! Look you, 
you make me blush for you with your religion ! 
For God’s sake hunt up a few morals before you 
talk about your religion.’ 

^ Morals ? what do you mean by that, Madame 
Cardinal ?’ 


MADAME CARDINAL 


27 


“ * What I mean is very soon told. Here you are, 
a married man, with a wife and three children, and 
you leave them all to vegetate in Italy to come and 
live at Paris with a ballet-dancer ! And then you 
talk about your religious sentiments ! No, ’pon my 
word, that spoils my appetite !’ 

“ ‘ Madame Cardinal, you go too far. I am mar- 
ried, that’s true, but I’ve told you a hundred times 
that the marchioness wronged me first ; I shouldn’t 
be here if the marchioness hadn’t wronged me first.’ 

“ ‘ Well, that’s very flattering to Virginie, isn’t it ? 
Do you hear, Virginie ? He says he wouldn’t be 
here if the marchioness hadn’t wronged him first. 
He insults you !’ 

“ ‘ I didn’t insult your daughter ; you did it your- 
self, you old lunatic !’ 

“ Here Monsieur Cardinal rose. 

“ ‘ I forbid you/ says he, ‘ to call my wife an old 
lunatic.’ 

“ ^ Old witch, if you prefer.’ 

^ Nor that either !’ 

“‘Old witch ! And I gave the man my daughter!’ 

“ ‘ Your daughter ! she gave herself to me for love !’ 


28 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ ‘ For love ! My daughter Virginie, love such a 
man as you ! You don’t believe it! Why the fact 
is, that the very day before this bargain was made, 
Virginie consulted me, for she never does anything 
without consulting me; no, except Crochard, she 
never did anything without consulting her mother ! 
And I told her: ‘‘Take the marquis,” says I; “he’s 
only an Italian marquis, but still he’s a marquis.” 
And Virginie replied : “ That isn’t what decides 
me, mamma,” says she; “the thing that decides 
me is that I’m very sure I never shall love him, 
and so, if he leaves me some day, I shall be glad 
of it rather than sorry.” ’ 

“ ‘ Did you say that, Virginie ?’ cried the marquis. 

“ ‘ Not just that, mamma has embellished it a little.’ 

“ ‘ No, I haven’t I Before God, who hears me, 
I haven’t changed it a bit !’ 

“ ‘ Don’t blaspheme, Madame Cardinal,’ cried the 
marquis. 

“ ‘ I just will blaspheme if it amuses me, you old 
Italian wreck of a man !’ 

“At that the marquis calls me a strumpet; 
Monsieur Cardinal gets up and tries to throw a 


MADAME CARDINAL 


29 


carafe at the marquis’s head ; Pauline rushes out 
of the room, weeping, and Virginie, half fainting, 
cries : ‘ Papa ! Mamma ! Edouard !’ — Edouard is the 
marquis’s name — and then bursts into tears, sobbing : 

“ ‘ Ah ! I see that we must part !’ 

“ It was a pretty how-d’ye-do, I promise you. 
Luckily, Madame Person, the dressmaker on the 
second floor, came to play a game of loto. We all 
did our best to put a good face on the matter and 
the marquis went away ; as soon as he’d gone. 
Monsieur Cardinal and I tried to say a pleas- 
ant word or two to Madame Person, but she 
saw that something was wrong, and so, as she’s 
a woman of tact, she left us after fifteen minutes 
or so. 

“ Virginie, who had a fit of the sulks, takes up 
the Petit Journal and begins to read. Thereupon 
Monsieur Cardinal leads me into a corner. 

“ ‘ Did you hear what Virginie said ?’ 

“ ‘ About what ?’ 

“ ‘ That we must part.’ 

“ ‘ Yes, what of it ?’ 

“ ‘ Why, she meant that for us.’ 


30 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“‘For us! You’re losing your wits, Monsieur 
Cardinal, she meant it for the marquis. Virginie, 
deny her father and mother I Nonsense ! However, 
I’ll show you. Dearie ?’ 

“ ‘ Mamma.’ 

“ ‘ What do you suppose Monsieur Cardinal says? 
That you spoke about leaving us.’ 

“‘II’ 

“ ‘ Yes, that you said we must part’ 

“ ‘ Oh, papa, oh ! mamma, can you believe it ? I 
was thinking of Edouard when I said that Is it 
possible for me to hesitate between you and him ? 
But, really, you did say too much to-night; why 
can’t you let him alone on politics and religion ?’ 

“ ‘ Because politics and religion include every- 
thing,’ said Monsieur Cardinal. 

“ ‘ Why, you can talk about other things.’ 

“ ‘ Yes, but then the conversation always lags.’ 

“ ‘ Oh ! well, papa, have a little patience.’ 

“ ‘ I will, my girl, I will, but let’s make peace.’ 

“ We called Pauline back and embraced all round. 
My eyes were filled with tears. Then we sat down 
to a game of loto as cheerfully as you please. 


MADAME CARDINAL 


31 


“The marquis came home at twelve o’clock. 
He bowed to me and I bowed to him, all very 
properly; and then I went to my room with Mon- 
sieur Cardinal. I went to bed and to sleep ; but just 
at daybreak, toe ! toe ! some one taps at my door. 

“‘Who’s there?’ 

“ ‘ It’s me, the marquis. Get up at once.” 

“ I threw on a sack and went out. The marquis 
was standing there, in dressing-gown and slippers. 

“ ‘ Is Virginie sick ?’ 

“ ‘ Oh ! just a little indisposed.’ 

“ ‘ That scene yesterday must have upset her ! 
I’ll go and get her a footbath.’ 

“‘Yes, a footbath; that’s what she’s asking for.’ 

“ I hurried off to the kitchen, lighted the fire and 
began to blow it; every little while the marquis 
came to see if the water was boiling. At last it 
boiled, so I pours out the water and goes along 
with the footbath, through the dining-room, through 
the salon, and knocks at the bedroom door. 

“ ‘ It’s me, open the door. I’ve got the footbath.’ 

“ ‘ All right, give it to me.’ 

“ ‘ What ! give it to you ?’ 


32 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“‘Yes, ni bathe her feet’ 

“ ‘ What ! you pretend to say that you’ll bathe 
my daughter’s feet when I’m here ?’ 

“ ‘ I tell you that we don’t need you. Leave it 
there !’ 

“ ‘ Never in this world !’ 

“ He seized the tub but I held on. He pulled 
and I pulled ; half the boiling water fell on his legs 
and he gave a yell and dropped it. 

“ Then I ran through the door to my Virginie. 

“ ‘ Here, my angel, here’s your footbath !’ 

“ And I looked the marquis straight in the eye 
and said : 

“‘Just try to tear a mother from her daughter’s 
arms, will you, you grinning ape! You abandon 
your children, but I don’t abandon mine !’ ’’ 

At that moment, Madame Cardinal interrupted 
herself and trotted off to the stage, to return in a 
moment holding Pauline by the ear. 

“ Ah ! you little wretch I” 

“ But, mamma — ” 

“I tell you M. de Gallerande just kissed you 
over there behind a post.’’ 




I 










■ tr M>* 



Ch \ inv 


^^kthnm m 


ilTi’J A 








m 



MADAME CARDINAL 


33 


“ I say he didn’t.” 

“ I say he did !” 

And Madame Cardinal added a hearty box on the 
ear to her affirmation. 

The manager of the dance came running up : 

“ Fined, Mademoiselle Pauline, fined !” 

“ Fined, Monsieur Pluque, because mamma 
trounced me !” 

“ I can’t fine your good mother ; she doesn’t draw 
wages ; indeed, Pll do better still and fine you twice 
over. Mademoiselle Pauline.” 

“ What for ?” said Madame Cardinal. 

“ Because of your presence in the wings, Madame 
Cardinal; mothers aren’t allowed on the stage. 
That’s the rule.” 

“ That’s a fine moral rule ; it’s to prevent mothers 
keeping an eye on their children.” 

“ I don’t know anything about that ; all I know 
is that your daughter will be six francs short at the 
end of the month.” 

“ Oh ! well,” said Madame Cardinal, “ we’ll pay 
your six francs ; we’re above your six francs ! We 
should be God-forsaken indeed if we didn’t have 


34 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


someone to pay you six francs ! Come, Pauline, 
let’s go !” 

After wishing me good-night : 

“ Ah !” said Madame Cardinal, “ what a trial for 
a mother to have two daughters in the ballet at the 
Opera !” 




* * k r • , 



i • 



. *1 










Ch, Leandro iov. L MCiller »c. 



fK* 




^ -Jl ' 







i 


t 


r 




11 

MONSIEUR CARDINAL 











* 

4 ^ 



II 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL 

On the 22d of November, 1871, at nine o’clock 

in the evening, I was walking along one of the 

sixty passages that cross and recross each other 

in every direction in the labyrinth of structures 

that compose the Opera. The monitor of the 

37 


38 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


ballet was walking in front of me with a bell in 
his hand, ringing it violently and crying in a 
drawling tone : 

“To the stage, mesdames, to the stage ! the 
second act is beginning !” 

From the coryphees’ dressing-room I saw some 
fifteen young women come forth, and rush head- 
long toward me like an avalanche, chatting, laugh- 
ing, shrieking, disputing, and hustling one another. 
I flattened myself against the wall and was saluted 
on the wing with a volley of : “ Good evening — 
Hallo ! there you are — What are you here for ?” I 
respectfully made way for this charming whirlwind, 
and the whole frisky, mettlesome, decollete multi- 
tude, clad in silk and satin, tripped swiftly up the 
stairways. 

What was I there for ? I knew very well. I 
was there in search of my venerable friend Madame 
Cardinal. The door of the dressing-room was left 
open. I looked in. Dresses were hanging, rumpled 
dresses and red flannel hoop petticoats on hooks 
against the walls. They were the chrysalides from 
which the glistening butterflies of the ballet of Don 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL 


39 


Juan had just emerged. Three or four mothers 
were there, sitting on straw chairs, talking, knitting 
or slumbering. 

I spied Madame Cardinal in a corner. Her two 
long white corkscrew curls made a symmetrical 
fringe about her patriarchal face. With her snuff- 
box on her knees and her spectacles upon her 
nose, Madame Cardinal was reading a newspaper. 

I drew near. Madame Cardinal, deeply absorbed 
in her reading, did not see me coming. I dropped 
upon a little stool at her side, and I whispered 
quickly in her ear this simple sentence : 

“ Madame Cardinal, you’re going to tell me 
Monsieur Cardinal’s story.” 

“ But Monsieur Cardinal hasn’t any story.” 

Oh ! yes, he has, and a very interesting one : 
Monsieur Cardinal was a justice of the peace under 
the Commune, Monsieur Cardinal was arrested ” 

“ Lower — lower — no one at the Opera has any 
suspicion ” 

“ I’ll talk as low as you choose ; but I want the 
details. Everything that concerns you interests 
me. As to my discretion ” 


40 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ I know that well enough. And I am will- 
ing to tell you the story. But draw your stool 
nearer.” 

I drew my stool nearer. Madame Cardinal 
began : 

“ I must go back a little because there are chains 
of circumstances in life, you know. I must begin on 
the 4th of September. Ah ! what a day that was 
for us, my dear monsieur ! First of all, the Revo- 
lution ! You can imagine that Monsieur Cardinal 
didn’t keep out of that. He was on the Quai 
d’Orsay, in front of the Corps Legislatif, in the 
front rank, against the railing. He never came 
home till six o’clock, worn out with shouting: 
‘ Vive la Republique !’ He brought home a little 
five franc meat-pie and a good bottle of Burgundy. 

“ ‘ Madame Cardinal,’ says he, ‘ we’re going to 
have a nice little dinner.’ 

“But just as we were sitting down at the table. 
Monsieur Cardinal, Pauline and I, in came Virginie 
and the marquis — Cavalcanti; you know, my 
daughter’s friend. — The marquis informed us that 
he was going to start for Italy the next day with 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL 


41 


Virginia. He didn’t propose to remain twenty-four 
hours in a city where the republic had been pro- 
claimed by the canaille. 

“At that, up jumps Monsieur Cardinal and 
cries : 

“ ‘ I was one of the canaille that proclaimed the 
republic !’ throws himself on the marquis, grabs 
him by the collar and shakes him like a plum-tree. 
My two chicks and I had all the trouble in the 
world to rescue the marquis from Monsieur Car- 
dinal’s hands. 

“ Virginie, luckily, with her tact, smoothed every- 
thing over. She explained to Monsieur Cardinal 
that the real reason was that the Opera was to be 
closed during the siege, that she didn’t want to 
break off her dancing and an engagement was 
offered her at Milan, et cetera^ et cetera. Monsieur 
Cardinal cooled down. 

“ ‘ I yield,’ he said, ‘ if it is a question of the 
interests of art and of Virginie’s future.’ 

“ The marquis withdrew his remark about the 
ca7iaille, and he and Monsieur Cardinal parted very 
good friends. 


42 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“During the siege Monsieur Cardinal was two 
men in one; he was the patriot who was in 
favor of making a sortie like a torrent, and 
Greek fire and reducing Paris to ashes. But, 
goodness ! I’ll tell you the whole truth — he was 
also the landed proprietor. Ah ! that Virginie’s 
an angel ! Before she started for Italy, she made 
the marquis arrange things very honorably for 
Monsieur Cardinal and me. You can imagine 
that all this was negotiated direct with me so 
that Monsieur Cardinal’s dignity didn’t have to 
suffer. 

“ The day after the marquis and Virginie went 
away, I says to Monsieur Cardinal: 

“ ‘ My dear, don’t you know some good way to 
invest about thirty thousand francs ?’ 

“ ‘ Thirty thousand francs ! I won’t ask you 
where you got such a sum. I don’t want to know ! 
But real estate has taken a great fall just now, on 
account of the present condition of things. We’ll 
subscribe to the Petits Affiches! 

“ A week after, we purchased a house at Batig- 
nolles, very cheap at the price we paid. And that’s 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL 


43 


why Monsieur Cardinal had two minds on the sub- 
ject of blowing up Paris. 

“ Monsieur Cardinal behaved like a hero through 
the siege, however. On account of his age and his 
rheumatics he couldn’t serve in the National Guard. 
But he found a way to contribute to the defense of 
Paris all the same ; he went to the clubs every 
night ! That life suited him very well. He formed 
connections in the political world. He began to 
be a man of some importance at Batignolles. He 
was elected assessor two or three times, and one 
night when the president didn’t feel very well and 
had to go out for a few minutes. Monsieur Cardinal 
took his place in the chair for those few minutes. 
When he came home that night he was wild with 
joy, and rushed into my arms, crying : 

“ ‘ I presided, Madame Cardinal, I presided !’ 

“You know as well as I do how Trochu be- 
trayed us to the Prussians with his famous plan. 
They capitulated and made peace. Monsieur 
Cardinal was resigned to the inevitable ; but he 
had a real spasm of rage, when he learned that 
King William proposed to enter Paris. ’Pon my 


44 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


word, I don’t know what would have happened if 
the Prussians had come to Batignolles ! I never 
could have held Monsieur Cardinal. Luckily they 
didn’t come any further than Parc Monceau. 

“ However, Monsieur Cardinal never stopped 
repeating : 

“ * Hark ye, Madame Cardinal, Alsace and Lor- 
raine and the five milliards — something must be 
done about them ; but let ’em look out at Bordeaux, 
let ’em not lay a hand on the republic ! Ah ! 
if they should think of laying a hand on the 
republic !’ 

^‘Then the i8th of March came, and I give you 
my word of honor. Monsieur Cardinal had noth- 
ing to do with it. No, indeed ; I kept him under 
lock and key ten days, I didn’t trust myself. There 
were people who advised Monsieur Cardinal to 
throw himself into the movement. He wasn’t a 
recruit to be despised, you see. If Monsieur Car- 
dinal had come out boldly for the Commune, he’d 
have taken many of the Batignolles people with 
him. ■ 

But he didn’t come out. 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL 


45 


Besides, I did all I could to calm him down. 

“ Of course, as a wife, I shared all Monsieur 
Cardinafs opinions; but I wasn’t a wife only; I 
was a mother. 

“I still had one daughter on my hands, and I 
said to myself: 

“ ^ After all, the Opera’s been closed nine months, 
and when will it reopen ? And Pauline isn’t settled, 
and I shall probably have hard work settling her 
under the republic, whereas, under the empire, to 
give the devil his due, that matter will take care of 
itself.’ 

“I didn’t share Monsieur Cardinal’s prejudices 
against the upper classes, you understand. In 
the wings at the Opera we see society people and 
we can’t help seeing that they have some good 
points. No, I don’t say that to be polite to you ; 
I really think so. I know we must have men of 
fashion, because, without them, what would become 
of our little ones, I ask you ? But then, you under- 
stand, I couldn’t give such reasons as that to Mon- 
sieur Cardinal; he’d have stopped me short and 
said : 


46 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ ‘ Madame Cardinal, you know I don’t like to 
go into those matters.’ 

‘‘After a week I was obliged to give Monsieur 
Cardinal his liberty. He promised to keep quiet. I 
let him join the committee of conciliation at Batig- 
nolles. It was splendid ! They had meetings every 
day and sent delegates to Versailles. All that couldn’t 
come to anything, but it had great advantages ; it 
made Monsieur Cardinal a man of importance and 
kept him busy, without compromising him. 

“And that wasn’t all. Monsieur Cardinal still 
had his Masonic business to amuse him. It goes 
without saying that Monsieur Cardinal belongs to 
the Freemasons. ' He even held some office. He 
was Grand something or other of the Second 
Chapter of Jacques VI. The Freemasons were up 
in arms. There were three parties among ’em; 
some were for doing nothing at all, others proposed 
making pacific demonstrations, and still others 
wanted to come out for the Commune. Monsieur 
Cardinal thought they ought not to do anything 
at all, that Freemasonry had no business meddling 
in war and politics. 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL 


47 


“ The lodge met almost every day ; they fought 
and wrangled, and, when Monsieur Cardinal came 
home at night, he’d say to me : 

“ ‘ Madame Cardinal, if you want to see a man 
that comes out strong in a debate, look at me.’ 

“We rubbed along that way for a month, and, 
I promise you, if Monsieur Cardinal leaned in either 
direction, it was in the direction of Versailles and 
not of the Commune. Tn the first place you can 
imagine that he wasn’t satisfied with the decree 
of the Commune about rents. The house we’d 
bought at Batignolles paid us very well, but our 
tenants, when they felt inclined, just decamped 
without paying, under the protection of the National 
Guard. And then Monsieur Cardinal’s very fond 
of the two little ones. It was very sad not to 
have seen Virginie for eight months, and he knew 
very well the marquis wouldn’t bring us back 
our child as long as there was a Commune in 
Paris. 

“For my part, I became a downright Versaillaise. 
To be sure the Commune was talking about reopen- 
ing the Opera, but the Opera without a ballet 1 


48 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


Pauline’s future worried me terribly, and I couldn’t 
keep from saying to myself : 

“ ‘ I don’t care ; if the empire had lasted two or 
three years longer, Pauline would be provided for 
to-day, and her position would probably be assured 
in every respect.’ 

“I ask your pardon for being so tiresome, but 
when a mother gets on the subject of her daughter, 
you know, her heart runs away with her. 

“ Now I come to April 28th — the awful day ! — 
the day that caused all our misery. For a week, 
shells had been falling now and then in the Batig- 
nolles neighborhood, and Monsieur Cardinal used 
to go and look at his house every morning. On 
the 26th of April, about eleven o’clock. Monsieur 
Cardinal came home with his eyes bulging out of 
his head and his teeth chattering in his mouth. 

“ ‘ Madame Cardinal,’ says he, ' do you know 
what’s happened, Madame Cardinal ?’ 

“ ‘ No, Monsieur Cardinal, but you frighten me.’ 

“ ‘ Well ! Monsieur Thiers has bombarded us ! 
Yes, Monsieur Thiers is doing what Monsieur de 
Bismarck didn’t do! Not a single Prussian shell 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL 


49 


fell in Batignolles, and last night a Versailles bomb 
went through our roof. I shall have to pay out at 
least fifteen hundred francs for repairs !’ 

“I made Monsieur Cardinal take a little mint- 
water, and tried to calm him ; but he was thor- 
oughly exasperated, and all of a sudden he cries 
out : 

‘ I didn’t mean to go to the Masonic demonstra- 
tion to-morrow, but I will go, Madame Cardinal, 
in the front row, and offer my breast to the can- 
non-balls of Versailles. My hat, give me my hat ! 
There’s a meeting of the lodge at noon. I am 
going to join my brothers.’ 

“In spite of my tears and shrieks, he left the 
house. A great demonstration was announced for 
the next day. They proposed to plant the Masonic 
banners on the ramparts, and if a shot touched ’em, 
the Masons took an oath to march against the 
Versaillais. Monsieur Cardinal had fought the plan 
only the day before; but then he hadn’t been 
bombarded ! It makes a great change in a man’s 
ideas, to receive a bomb in his roof that does fifteen 
hundred francs’ worth of damage. 


50 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ Monsieur Cardinal came home at four o’clock. 
He was calm and serious and had a great staff in 
his hand. 

^ Madame Cardinal,’ says he, ^ fix it any way 
you can, but I must have a Masonic banner to- 
morrow morning at eight o’clock or quarter past. 
I am to carry a banner, and I have undertaken to 
furnish it, because, you understand, the more ban- 
ners there are, the more imposing it will be and 
the more likely to bring the man that’s bombard- 
ing us to his senses ! Here’s the staff for the 
banner !’ 

“I saw at once from Monsieur Cardinal’s tone 
and expression that there was no use arguing with 
him. Pauline and I had to go to work right away ; 
and we made a banner that really did very well 
indeed out of an old ball-dress of Virginie’s. I 
sacrificed one of my petticoats and put a layer of 
flannel between the two thicknesses of silk. That 
made the banner stiff But the most successful 
thing about it was the emblems and the motto. I 
cut out a triangle, a square, a hammer and all the 
letters for the inscription : Ainiez-vous les uns les 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL 


51 


autres — Love one another — from a piece of blue satin 
that came from an old dress of Virginie’s. And 
then I sewed ’em all on the white silk. I tell you, 
that made a fine effect ! And when Monsieur 
Cardinal went away at half-past eight in an open 
cabriolet, with his banner waving in the air, there 
was a shout of admiration in Batignolles. 

“ Before he got into the carriage. Monsieur Car- 
dinal kissed me, right on the sidewalk before a 
crowd of two or three hundred people. I wept and 
shrieked and clung to his coat. 

“ ‘ Monsieur Cardinal,’ says I, ‘ I don’t want to 
leave you ! You are going into danger, I am your 
wife, and it is my duty to share it !’ 

“ But he replied : 

‘ No, no, Madame Cardinal, I won’t take you. 
I need all my strength, you might make me weak. 
Adieu ! Let me go ! I go to offer my breast to the 
cannon-balls of the Versaillais ! My breast after 
my roof!’ 

“ With that he kisses me, jumps into his carriage, 
bows to the crowd and drives away ; and I, with 
my blood in a fever, almost fainting, in the arms of 


52 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


Madame Canivet, a friend of ours, a box-keeper at 
the Opera, watched the carriage and the banner 
waving above Monsieur Cardinal’s head. Every- 
body congratulated me on my banner, 

“ ‘ It will be the best one there,’ they said, ‘ it will 
be the best !’ 

“ But you can imagine that I hadn’t any head to 
receive congratulations. 

“ The cabriolet hadn’t turned the corner of the 
street before I thought to myself : ‘ He wouldn’t 
let me go with him, but I have a right to go and 
see him ride along the boulevard. Yes, I must 
show Pauline that sight, the child must always 
remember it. She must see her father in the pro- 
cession 1’ Then I instantly thought of Monsieur le 
Comte de Glayeul, who has always shown a great 
deal of interest in my little ones. I had taken 
Virginie to his house two or three times, and he 
used to be always saying to me before the 4 th 
September : ‘ Bring Pauline to me one of these 
mornings.’ And you know Monsieur de Glayeul 
isn’t one of the clowns that only want to ruin our 
daughters. No, he’s a serious-minded man such 
















' *: 

. ^ 











k 

1 


! V* < 






’ ’ ♦ , 


• * ' ’ V*^ 


1>S 




. •J.*!. ..1. 




MONSIEUR CARDINAL 


53 


as a mother can trust her daughter to ; he’s a man 
who knows all about the ballet and all about life ; 
he never gave Virginie anything but good advice. 
So I says to myself : ‘ I’ll just take Pauline to 
him. He lives on the entresol, front, on Boulevard 
de la Madeleine. That will do our business and 
we’ll be in the front boxes to see the demonstration 
pass.’ 

Monsieur de Glayeul received Pauline with open 
arms. He seated me in a big easy-chair in front of 
one of the salon windows, and sat at the other win- 
dow himself with Pauline, because three at one win- 
dow would have been too many, we should have 
been in each other’s way. At one o’clock the pro- 
cession began to go by. Well, now, I tell you, any- 
body that didn’t see that, never saw anything ! It 
was superb ! 

“ First came the members of the Commune with 
their scarfs round their waists, then three companies 
of Turcos employed by the Commune, then the 
Masonic deputations, and then the dignitaries, and 
among the dignitaries Monsieur Cardinal, with his 
face beaming all over, carrying my banner. I 


54 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


leaned out of the window and cried to the little 
one : 

“ ‘ Pauline ! Pauline ! See, there’s your father ! ’ 

“But look as I would I couldn’t see the little 
one, and I kept on crying : 

“ ‘ Pauline, what ever are you doing ? I tell you, 
there goes your father !’ 

“At last she heard me and leaned out of the 
window; she was all red with excitement, poor 
child, and I said to her : 

“ ‘ Wave your handkerchief, Pauline, wave your 
handkerchief.’ 

“With that we both waved our handkerchiefs, 
and I shouted at the top of my voice : 

“ ^ Monsieur Cardinal ! Monsieur Cardinal ! we’re 
up here — in the entresol !’ 

“ He heard me and turned his head, dipped his 
banner a little to us and passed on ! 

“ When I started to go home with Pauline, Mon- 
sieur de Glayeul says : 

“ ‘ Oh ! leave the little one with me, Pll bring her 
home to-night after dinner.’ 

“ But I replied : 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL 


55 


No, no, Monsieur le Comte, not to-day : I can’t 
be separated from my child when Monsieur Cardi- 
nal is in such danger. Some other day, as long as 
you choose !’ 

“ And I took Pauline away with me. 

We went home. It may have been about three 
o’clock. The cannonading had ceased and that 
comforted me a bit. But about four I heard five 
or six shots. I had a presentiment. I cried out : 

“^Ah! that’s Monsieur Thiers firing on Monsieur 
Cardinal !’ 

“ I wasn’t mistaken. 

“ At six o’clock the door opened with a bang ; 
and Monsieur Cardinal appeared, beside himself 
with excitement, no hat, wild-eyed, all white with 
dust. Do you not know what had happened ? A 
Versailles shell came straight for Monsieur Cardinal 
while he was setting up his banner between Porte 
Maillot and Porte Dauphine. 

“ Monsieur Cardinal went to bed in a high fever 
and, for more than a week, I was very uneasy 
about him. He was delirious every night and kept 
repeating the same things over and over. 


56 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ ‘ Monsieur Thiers the bombarder ! Shells at 
my house ! Shells at me ! Vive la Commune !’ 

When Monsieur Cardinal was up and about 
again, about May 15th, I couldn’t prevent him 
from throwing himself into the movement all over. 
They offered him his choice between a place in the 
War Department and a seat in the magistracy. I 
urged him to decide for the magistracy. It seemed 
to me that it was less dangerous, more honorable 
and better adapted to Monsieur Cardinal’s char- 
acter. Friday, May 19th, the Official published the 
decree appointing Monsieur Cardinal justice of the 
peace. I was very uneasy, but I must confess, for all 
that, that I was flattered to see Monsieur Cardinal’s 
name spread out on the first page of the Official. 
Monsieur Cardinal was to have his first audience on 
the following Monday at nine o’clock. 

The day before, Sunday, he went and had his 
photograph taken in two positions : in the first he 
was alone, with a sober, thoughtful face, in his 
judge’s gown, leaning against a pillar and holding 
the Official of the 19th in his hand — that was the 
magistrate ! In the other he was still in his judge’s 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL 


57 


gown, but he wasn’t alone ; I was leaning on his 
arm, he was showing me the Official of the 19th, 
and smiling at me — that was the husband ! 

“ Monday morning, at nine o’clock, Monsieur 
Cardinal, in his gown, took his seat as a judge on 
the bench ; he had such an air of authority and 
dignity, that you would have thought he’d done 
nothing else all his life. Naturally, I took Pauline 
to look on. The first case was called — but just as 
the plaintiff was coming forward, a soldier of the 
Commune rushed into the court-room, shouting : 

“ ‘ The enemy’s inside the walls ! Everybody to 
the barricades !’ 

“ I gave one leap to the platform. I tore off 
Monsieur Cardinal’s gown, threw his judge’s cap 
into a corner and dragged him home as fast as I 
could go. There I locked him up, and for six 
weeks he never put his nose outside the door. 
After six weeks had gone by, I was beginning 
to breathe again, when, one morning — it was 
July 3rd, — somebody rang the -bell, Pauline went 
to the door, and came tearing back in terror, 
shrieking : 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


58 

“ ‘ Mamma, mamma, it’s the police !’ 

“And so it was the police. They showed Mon- 
sieur Cardinal the photograph he was idiot enough 
to have taken the very day of the entry of the 
Versaillais. Monsieur Cardinal was admirable. 

“ ‘ I’m your man,’ he said, ‘ I’m ready to go with 
you, I have sacrificed my life. I won’t try to 
redeem my life by cowardice. Allow me to embrace 
my wife and I am at your service.’ 

“ He opened his arms. I rushed into them and 
he said to me rapidly, in a low voice : 

“ ‘ The marquis is the only man who can get me 
out of this scrape. I remember now. He was very 
intimate with Monsieur Thiers. He used to dine 
with him in Place Saint-Georges.’ 

“ Then he drew himself up, turned to the com- 
missioner of police and said : 

“ ‘ Forward, monsieur, forward !’ 

“ I immediately sent a telegraphic dispatch to 
Virginie : 

“ ‘ Your father's in limbo. Come with the marquis. 
He only can save us I 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL 


59 


'‘Well, to do him justice, the marquis is a real 
gentleman. In forty-eight hours he was in Paris, 
and when I said : 

“ ‘ How good you were to come !’ 

“ ‘ Don’t thank me,’ says he, ‘ I had to see Mon- 
sieur Thiers about Roman affairs. I’ll speak to him 
about Monsieur Cardinal at the same time.’ 

“The next day Monsieur Cardinal was restored 
to me.” 

At that moment the coryphees, flowers and butter- 
flies came rushing madly into the dressing-room. 

Pauline came and stood in front of Madame 
Cardinal, and said, exultantly : 

“ Look, mamma, see the two little diamonds in 
my ears; Monsieur de Glayeul brought them to 
me to-night.” 

Madame Cardinal hastily replaced her spectacles 
on her nose, scrutinized the two little diamonds, 
and was, apparently, satisfied with what she saw; 
for she turned to me and said : 

“ He behaves very handsomely to Pauline, does 
Monsieur de Glayeul. Do you know it was an 


6o THE CARDINAL FAMILY 

inspiration from Heaven, my going to his house the 
day of Monsieur Cardinal’s demonstration. And 
now go, you. You’re in the way here. These 
children are too well brought up to undress before 
you.” 


r 




LLJi,.. t'J.i 









HI 

THE LITTLE CARDINALS 






A H/ 










■j; 











THE LITTLE CARDINALS 


It was November 29, 1875, the evening of the 
reproduction of Don Juan at the Opera. The 
second act was being sung. I had an orchestra 
chair on the right, in a little corner occupied by 
old habitues who listen to nothing but the ballet. 

63 


64 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


And as the ballet did not come on until the follow- 
ing act, but little attention was being paid, in that 
particular corner, to the quarrel between Zerlina 
and Masetto. We were talking and joking. We 
were speaking of old times, of the old opera-house 
on Rue Le Peletier, of the Opera before the war 
and before the fire. What irreparable losses in 
the corps de ballet! How many pretty girls had 
disappeared! The Villeroys, the Brachs, the Vol- 
ters, the Georgeaults, — and the little Cardinals. 

The little Cardinals ! I had forgotten them. 
The little Cardinals, everlastingly flanked by their 
venerable mother, the majestic, the massive Madame 
Cardinal, with her imposing crown of white hair, 
with her beautiful silver spectacles planted upon 
a huge nose all black with snuff. And Monsieur 
Cardinal ! — I knew nothing whatever of the pres- 
ent circumstances of that interesting family. It 
seemed to me a favorable opportunity to find out 
something about them. 

When the curtain fell I went behind the scenes. 
Behold me in the dancers’ greenroom, just before 
the ballet divertissement, patiently beginning my 


THE LITTLE CARDINALS 65 

little quest. I question the old employes of the 
Opera. The reply is always the same : 

“ Virginie Cardinal never came back to the 
Opera after the war, and Pauline Cardinal hasn’t 
been seen since the fire.” 

No more little Cardinals ! no more Madame 
Cardinal ! 

The chain was broken. 

The individuals I questioned listened to me 
absent-mindedly. It was not only the first per- 
formance of Don Juan^ but the first appearance of 
Grevin’s costumes, and the young women were 
assuming pretty postures before the great mirror 
in the greenroom, tightening the laces of their 
dancing-pumps, swelling out in a way to burst 
their clothes, and arranging their clouds of gauze. 

Suddenly, borr ! borr ! sounded sharply the elec- 
tric bell. 

“ Stage ! stage ! ” 

General exit. 

The whole army of Pierrettes, Polichinelles and 
Arlequines drew up in good order, at the rear of 
the stage, upon a great platform. 


66 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


They awaited there the signal for the grand 
march, and, elevated as they were, produced the 
effect of a battalion of pretty little horses, caracol- 
ing, pawing the ground, prancing, rearing and pre- 
paring to charge. It was a charming sight; but 
it all gave me no information whatever as to the 
fate of Madame Cardinal. 

Suddenly, I received a light tap on the shoulder. 
I turned and found myself face to face with an 
exceedingly pretty Polichinelle, in a great Nor- 
mandy cap, with a spangled hump before and a 
spangled hump behind, open-work collarette, puffed 
satin shoulder-straps. And looking out from it all 
the wide-awake face of an urchin of sixteen. 

“Is it you. Monsieur X ?“ 

“ It is L” 

“And are you the one that’s asking about the 
Cardinal family?” 

“ Yes, I’m the man.” 

“Well, if you’re not afraid of going up to the 
fourth tier of boxes, go and find my aunt, Madame 
Canivet.” 

“Madame Canivet?” 


THE LITTLE CARDINALS 


67 


“Yes. She works up on the fourth on the 
amphitheatre level; she’ll tell you all about Ma- 
dame Cardinal.” 

“ But perhaps you know something about her 
yourself? ” 

“ Mon Dieu, yes, but not much. I know well 
enough that ” 

But the little Polichinelle was suddenly inter- 
rupted in her tale. 

“What are you doing here, Mademoiselle Can- 
ivet? Come! off with you to your place on the 
platform 1 ” 

It wa» the voice of the manager of the ballet, 
the affable Monsieur Pluque, who, in a black coat 
and white cravat, serious and dignified, superin- 
tended the evolutions of his little army corps. 
Mademoiselle Canivet with three leaps was in her 
place in the masquerade, and shouted to me again 
from her lofty position : 

“ Go and see my aunt 1 go and see my aunt 1 ” 

And go I did, after the ballet and during the 
finale. Shades of the great Mozart, forgive me ! 
The fourth floor boxes are terribly high! I got 


68 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


there at last, however and hailed the first box- 
keeper I saw. 

“Amphitheatre level?” said 1. 

“This is it.” 

“ Madame Canivet ? ” 

“ That’s my name.” 

She looked at me very closely, did Madame 
Canivet, and at last she cried out : 

“Why, wait, I know you. You’re Monsieur 
X ?” 

“Yes, I’m Monsieur X .” 

“ I know you perfectly. We dined together 
once.” 

“ Dined together ! Where was that, pray ? ” 

“ Why, at Madame Cardinal’s ! ” 

Thereupon, in the twinkling of an eye, as if a 
curtain had been suddenly pulled aside, I saw the 
table at which Madame Canivet and I had taken 
our places. Yes, it was at Madame Cardinal’s, at 
Batignolles — it must have been something like six 
or seven years earlier. — We had been at the Opera 
one evening, at the poor old burned Opera on Rue 


THE LITTLE CARDINALS 69 

Drouot There were four of us — yes, four; my 
memory was as clear as a bell. A senator, a 
real senator, who sat at the Luxembourg in an 
embroidered coat, the first secretary of a great 
foreign embassy, a painter, and myself, your very 
humble servant It took place in a passage. There 
were delightful old passages in the old Opera, with 
nooks and corners dimly lighted by smoky lamps. 
We had caught the two little Cardinals in one of the 
passages, and we were asking them to give us the 
pleasure of dining with us at the Cafe Anglais the 
next day. 

The two little Cardinals were bursting to accept 
But mamma’ll never consent,” they said. “ You 
don’t know mamma ! ” 

And suddenly that redoubtable parent appeared 
at the end of the passage. 

“ Well ! ” she cried, “ you’re helping my girls to 
a good trouncing.’* 

Oh ! Madame Cardinal ” 

“ I don’t like to have them hanging round the 
passages. I won’t have it — I maintain it isn’t 
proper ! ” 


70 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


I started to push the senator forward. Madame 
Cardinal had great respect for the constituted 
authorities. The senator began : 

Come, come, Madame Cardinal, don’t lose your 
temper; I was here and my presence ought to 
satisfy you. It was all innocent enough. We 
were simply asking the dear girls to dine with us 
at the Cafe Anglais.” 

“Without their mother?” 

“ But it would give us the greatest pleasure, 
Madame Cardinal, if you ” 

“ The idea of the Cardinal family capering about 
in wine shops ! Why not Monsieur Cardinal, while 
you’re about it ? Do you mean to make fun of 
people ? ” 

Madame Cardinal threw this last question viciously 
into the senator’s face ; but, suddenly, she stopped, 
embarrassed, and changed countenance. She felt 
that she had gone too far. She was afraid she 
had offended the senator, so she undertook to set 
things right again. 

“ I beg your pardon ; I was wrong, but I’m like 
a lioness, you know, when my daughters are in 
















k '* * 


k 






/ %AJ 



THE LITTLE CARDINALS 


71 


question. So you want to dine with the little 
ones ? Well, that can be managed. Why won’t 
you all four come and dine at the house to- 
morrow, without ceremony? Monsieur Cardinal 
will be highly honored.” 

We consulted one another with a glance and 
accepted, with the utmost seriousness, without mov- 
ing a muscle, notwithstanding the inordinate desire 
to laugh that almost choked us. 

And the next evening, having sent on ahead, 
in the morning, divers hampers of game and bas- 
kets of champagne, we rang Monsieur Cardinal’s 
door-bell at half-past six. 

He received us with perfect courtesy. 

If we had been very critical, we might have 
noticed a shade of reserve in his greeting to the 
senator, but it was slight, very slight. 

Eveiy^thing went off well. 

The two girls were pretty as Loves in their white 
muslin dresses and broad blue sashes. The father, 
mother and children made a delightful, almost 
touching picture. We seemed to be breathing 
an atmosphere of patriarchal virtue. We were all. 


72 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


beginning with Monsieur Cardinal, in black coats 
and white cravats. We must have looked like a nice 
little provincial wedding-party. 

Ting-a-ling! ting-a-ling! some one rang the 
bell. 

“That must be the vol-au-vent cries Madame 
Cardinal. 

A little maid comes in and whispers to Madame 
Cardinal. Evident excitement of Madame Cardi- 
nal. She calls Virginie. A short, very animated 
discussion. Clearly it wasn’t the vol-au-vent, but 
what was it? At last Virginie comes to us. 

“ This is what has happened,” she says ; “ it’s 
Madame Canivet, an old friend of mamma’s, a 
very nice woman ; she has come and invited her- 
self to dinner. Mamma wants to send her away, 
but I say it wouldn’t be right. Just because she’s 
a box-keeper at the Opera, is that any reason ? ” 

All four of us eagerly disclaimed any such idea. 
We demanded Madame Canivet, our demand was 
acceded to. She came in. She was introduced to 
us, and we sat down to dinner. 

What a dinner ! what conversation ! 


THE LITTLE CARDINALS 


73 


I never have eaten with better appetite or more 
gaily. It was a little repast ordered from the 
cook-shop. 

Madame Canivet ate heartily and drank hard, but 
without losing her head in the least, and whenever 
she could see an opening, she would carelessly 
inject the following phrase into the conversation, 
with an affable smile at the senator : 

“ When I think that with a little influence I 
might go down from the fourth tier of boxes to 
the third ! ” 

The senator looked stupid, pretended not to 
understand, but Madame Canivet did not lose 
heart, and over and over again like the refrain of 
a ballad would come the same words : 

“ When I think that with a . little influence,” 
etc., etc. 

At dessert. Monsieur Cardinal and the senator 
went at each other about the coup cL'etat. 

That capped the climax ! 

And now I found Madame Canivet again — still 
on the fourth tier — not promoted to the third. I 


74 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


thought it would be polite to express astonish- 
ment thereat. 

“ I was going down, monsieur,” she said ; “ I 
should have gone, if it hadn’t been for the 4th of 
September. But let’s not talk about it — I should 
get too excited. What can I do for you?” 

I was told that you could give me some news 
of Madame Cardinal.” 

“So I can, fresh news, too — up to day before 
yesterday. She wrote me. But just take the 
trouble to sit down.” 

She offered me a seat on a magnificent bench 
of imitation Cordovan leather. The greatest splen- 
dor reigns at the Opera, even in the passages on 
the fourth floor. 

I sat down on the bench beside Madame Cani- 
vet and we settled ourselves for a little gossip. 

A municipal guard in uniform was sitting at 
the other end of the bench, stiff as a ramrod, 
with his hands on his sabre and helmet on his 
head, fast asleep. Through the little square win- 
dows of the dressing-rooms the echoes of the finale 
of Don Juan floated softly up to our ears, and 


THE LITTLE CARDINALS 


75 


formed an accompaniment to Madame Canivet’s 
words. 

“ Madame Cardinal,” she said, “ has gone into 
the country, with Monsieur Cardinal, of course. 
Virginie bought a pretty little house for them at 
Ribeaumont, a village near Saint-Germain. She 
gave it to them for a wedding present. The mar- 
quis — ^you remember the marquis ? — had the good 
luck to be left a widower, and married Virginie. 
She’s a real marchioness now. I don’t know what’s 
become of Pauline, the little one. I have an idea 
she’s gone to the bad. Pve spoken to Madame 
Cardinal about her two or three times, and she 
always answers : ‘ I haven’t got but one daughter 
and she’s a marchioness at Florence. Don’t ever 
say a word to me about the other.’ So I don’t 
say any more about her. You ask if Madame 
Cardinal enjoys herself in the country. She’s 
bored to death there. She was used to Batig- 
nolles, you know, and when one’s used to Batig- 
nolles — but she’s a woman who does her duty, and 
as soon as she understood that Monsieur Cardinal’s 
political future was at stake, she submitted. Bless 


76 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


my soul, yes, he’s taken seriously to politics ; he’d 
always dreamed of that, and in her letter of the 
day before yesterday Madame Cardinal says : ‘ Mon- 
sieur Cardinal is satisfied, very well satisfied — things 
are going well, very well.’ ” 

Just then there was a great hullabaloo. All the 
doors were thrown open. It was the entr’acte. 
The curtain had fallen. Madame Canivet went off 
to attend to her duties, and I went down stairs. 

So Monsieur Cardinal had taken seriously to 
politics, and was satisfied, and things were going 
well. It seemed to me that that phenomenon 
deserved to be studied close at hand. 

A little trip to Ribeaumont was hardly more 
than a long drive, and the next day, an old cab, 
hired at Saint-Germain, set me down at Monsieur 
Cardinal’s gate. 

A sort of little sign was hanging on the gate, 
and contained this interesting notice: 

Monsieur Cardinal is at the service of the electors 
of Ribeaumont and the neighboring Comfuunes every 
day^ Sundays included, from twelve o'clock till four, 


THE LITTLE CARDINALS 


77 


to enlighten them as to their duties and especially 
as to their rights. 

Senatorial, legislative, departmental, arrondisse- 
mental, municipal and other elections. 

That was a good beginning. I rang. The next 
moment I heard a voice, a well - known voice : 
“Amelie! Amelie! The bell, the bell!” I heard 
footsteps coming hurriedly along the path, and 
found myself confronted by a little maid. 

“ Have you come about politics ? Are you an 
elector ? ” 

“No, no — I would like to speak to Madame 
Cardinal ” 

I was interrupted by an outcry. Madame 
Cardinal had recognized me, and she ran — at 
least she did the best she could in the way of 
running. Her scanty locks floated mildly in the 
wind, her spectacles jumped up and down on her 
nose, her broad face was made still broader by 
enthusiasm, and these words came from her pant- 
ing breast: 

“You I you I it’s you ! ” 


78 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


Never before, I think, had I been welcomed with 
such demonstrations of joy and affection. I was 
a little ashamed. 

Monsieur Cardinal was more dignified. He re- 
ceived me at the top of the steps, led me through 
his reception-room, opened a door, and said, with 
a majestic wave of the hand : 

Enter — enter the salon — I might say the 
temple.” 

I looked at him in some amazement and 
repeated : 

“ The temple ? ” 

“Yes. Look. My God! That is my God! 
There on the mantelpiece.” 

I tried to see, but the temple was dark. I 
could distinguish a dark object on the chimney- 
piece, but I could hardly make out 

“ Voltaire ! it’s Voltaire ! Do you know that 
bust of Voltaire?” 

Did I know that bust of Voltaire! Why, I 
bought it myself! My friend Paul was in Eng- 
land, and one morning I received a letter from 
him. 












'jmiitir' 




H'W&r 


C'leixni re 






,vr '^z r};7.'(’'r.\'i’. r ■ ' '.y''* f«r'^^ri v ■ -. / 



THE LITTLE CARDINALS 


79 


‘‘Pray read this letter of Virginie’s,” he wrote 
me, “ and do what is necessary.” 

This is what Virginie’s letter said almost word 
for word : 

‘‘ My Dear Friend : 

‘ Papa’s birthday comes next week. We used to 
celebrate Saint-Michel’s day, but he won’t let us now; 
he says that celebrating saints’ days is giving counte- 
nance to superstition. So we celebrate his birthday. 
It comes to the same thing about presents. You know 
how sensitive papa is, and how proud ! He never asks 
for anything directly, but he always finds some clever 
way of letting me know what he would like, without 
seeming to do it. For the last two weeks, he’s been 
talking about a bust of Voltaire from morning till 
night, at breakfast and dinner, all the time in fact. — 
‘ Oh ! if I only had a bust of Voltaire ! I saw a fine 
one, in bronze, life size, on Boulevard Poissoniere,’ 
etc., etc. Voltaire’s his God, you know ! So it would 
be very nice of you to write from over there to one of 
your friends to buy the bust and send it to our house. 
Don’t let him make any mistake. It’s a bust with the 
head bent forward, and a smile on the face. Papa 
says it’s just Voltaire’s smile. But don’t let the dealer 
make a fool of himself, like the one last year about 
the piece of furniture for the parlor. You know they 


8o 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


sent a card and a receipted bill in your name with it. 
Papa kept it all the same, but he was in a sort of dumb 
rage for a fortnight. He wouldn’t speak to mamma or 
me. Let them just send the bust without a card or a 
bill.” 


So there we three were, Monsieur Cardinal, 
Madame Cardinal and I, sitting around the fire- 
place under the presidency of Voltaire. 

We began to talk, but our talk did not answer 
my purpose at all. It was hardly more than a 
monologue by Monsieur Cardinal. He proposed 
to serve his country to the full extent of his 
powers. Paris was too vast a stage for him, that 
fact he recognized. But he had already rendered 
great services to Ribeaumont, and proposed to 
render greater still. He had to deal with very 
narrow minds, far behind the age. Worthy people, 
but poor, and wholly absorbed in their fields and 
vineyards. He would rouse them out of their 
apathy. He, the bold pioneer of universal suffrage, 
would go to the root of matters, etc., etc. 

He droned on — and on. This sort of thing had 
lasted a quarter of an hour, and I was beginning 


THE LITTLE CARDINALS 


8i 


to regret my expedition to Ribeaumont. What 
I must have was a little chat, tete-a-tete, with 
Madame Cardinal. 

Luckily, in the middle of one of Monsieur Cardi- 
nal’s harangues, the bell rang. 

Monsieur Cardinal raised his head and pricked 
up his ears. His face lighted up. He smelt 
powder. 

Suppose it should be an elector? It was one! 

The little maid showed him into the salon. 

He was an atrocious creature, was the elector. 
Boots trodden down at the heel, threadbare blouse, 
soft hat, cravat like a string, waxed moustaches. 
Abominable, in short ; abominable ! 

Monsieur Cardinal darted to meet him. 

“You wish to speak to me, my friend?” 

“Yes, on the subject of my registration. Just 
fancy — ^they propose to strike off my name because 
of a paltry judgment for four sous.” 

“ Come, my friend, come into my study.” 

And Monsieur Cardinal entered his study, having 
most respectfully waved his precious client in before 
him. 


82 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


I was alone with Madame Cardinal. I had no 
need to touch the spring to set the machinery in 
motion. The words gushed out of themselves, 
abundant and artless, from Madame Cardinal’s 
lips. 

“ How glad I am to see you ! Ah ! you remind 
me of old times — the good old times — the Opera, 
Madame Monge’s box, Madame Dominique’s les- 
son. And it’s all over now. We had to banish 
ourselves to the country. I have sacrificed myself, 
my dear sir, positively sacrificed myself You 
know what took place under the Commune. Mon- 
sieur Cardinal accepted a place in the magistracy ; 
he was arrested ; they were going to send him to 
the hulks ; the marquis saw Monsieur Thiers ; 
Monsieur Cardinal was restored to us. But people 
began to wonder in Batignolles how Monsieur 
Cardinal went to work to recover his liberty. And 
they got at the truth of it. His daughter a mar- 
quis’s mistress ! And that marquis, a friend of 
Monsieur Thiers ! It was all up with Monsieur 
Cardinal in Batignolles. The pure creatures began 
to turn their backs on him and heap insults on 


THE LITTLE CARDINALS 83 

insults. That didn’t shake Monsieur Cardinal’s 
convictions, but it saddened him. That was when 
he began to talk about going to live in the country. 
There were useful truths to be spread among the 
rural population. And to spread truths has always 
been Monsieur Cardinal’s passion ! ‘ There’s some- 
thing of the apostle in me,’ he often says to me, 
‘ I feel the need of spreading truth.’ However, I 
don’t need to say any more about that. You 
know Monsieur Cardinal’s character.” 

“ I know it, Madame Cardinal, I know it per- 
fectly.” 

And then there was another thing : there was 
the state of siege in Paris. Monsieur Cardinal was 
near dying of that state of siege; he did nothing 
* but repeat : 

“ ‘ I’m stifling. I’m stifling under this state of 
siege. I feel as if I had a weight here. I don’t 
know how you go to work to breathe; I can’t — 
I cannot ! ’ 

“ And every evening, when it was time for the 
patrol to pass, he had a horrible spasm. You 
know, during the time immediately following the 


84 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


Commune, mounted patrols rode through all the 
streets. 

‘‘At Batignolles they were cuirassiers. At quar- 
ter to nine every evening, regularly, they passed 
under our windows. 

“ From eight to half-past eight Monsieur Cardi- 
nal began to grow excited. He seemed to smell 
the patrol coming. 

“ rd say to him : 

“ ‘ My dear, if it troubles you so much to see 
them pass, don’t stay here, go to your little 
cafe.’ 

“ ‘ No, no,’ he’d say. ‘ I might meet them, and 
I don’t know what would happen! No, I don’t 
know I and then, too, it’s all for the best, for it 
keeps my wrath alive, it keeps it alive I ’ 

“ So he stayed at home. And when the horses’ 
hoofs clattered under our windows Monsieur Cardi- 
nal would turn livid. He wouldn’t say a word. 
It was awful to see him. 

“ Sometimes he’d drag himself to the window,, 
and say : 

“ ‘ Bare sabres ! their sabres are bare I ’ 


THE LITTLE CARDINALS 85 

“ In the midst of all his trouble, the poor man 
V^as going to seed. I got along all right, so far 
as I was concerned; I had the Opera and I had 
Pauline.” 

“Ah! yes, Pauline — pray, tell me something 
about Pauline.” 

“Yes, I will tell you about her, but nobody 
else. There’s a sore spot in our family, and that 
sore spot is Pauline. 

“ She disturbed me, Pauline did. 

“ In the first place, she didn’t work at her danc- 
ing, and when a child doesn’t work at her danc- 
ing it’s bad — it’s a sign she has ideas in her head. 
And then, you know, that wasn’t Virginie’s nature 
at all. Virginie was so confiding, so affectionate, 
so entirely as she ought to be with her mother — 
always consulting me about everything. Pauline 
on the other hand avoided me, got away from me. 
She wasn’t so open and unreserved about her 
future and her hopes as a child ought to be with 
her mother. 

“ I kept close watch ; but when a girl’s deter- 
mined to go to the devil the most watchful mother 


86 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


that ever was. can’t do anything, you know. I 
used to see a young fellow always hanging and 
hanging about Pauline in the wings. I had ques- 
tioned her about him and she said: 

“ ‘ He’s a nice sort of a fellow, and he’s in a good 
position — secretary to a minister.’ 

“ Secretary to a minister ! What sort of a posi- 
tion’s that in a country where ministers fall like 
card-houses ? 

“ At last, one day, lo and behold Pauline makes 
a clean breast to me, tells me that she loves this 
ne’er-do-well, that she adores him, that she’s dying 
for him, that she wants to give herself to him for 
love! Did ever you hear such nonsense? Not 
to mention another thing. Pauline knew Monsieur 
Cardinal’s political opinions. 

“ However, her father would have forgiven 
everything — ^yes, anything — except a public func- 
tionary of Monsieur MacMahon’s government! I 
gave Pauline a good talking to, and I gave her 
to understand that I wouldn’t have her talking to 
her jumping-jack of a minister’s secretary any 
more. She pretended to be convinced by my 


THE LITTLE CARDINALS 


87 


arguments. And, that very evening — do you know 
what happened that evening, my dear monsieur — 
do you know?” 

“ I suspect, Madame Cardinal.” 

” That evening — ^they were playing Robert — she 
slipped through my fingers after the ballet of the 
Nuns. Everybody came down — no Pauline ! I 
didn’t know where the jumping-jack lived. If I 
had. I’d have gone there at breakneck speed to 
take back my child. But there, I couldn’t go 
to all the departments and ring and ask the 
concierge : 

*‘'Does it happen to be your minister’s secre- 
tary ?’ 

“ I went home : Monsieur Cardinal turned pale 
when he saw me alone. 

“ I fell on my knees. 

“ ' Forgive me. Monsieur Cardinal, forgive me. 
I have been a bad mother ; I haven’t been watchful 
enough.’ 

He picked me up and kissed me and we wept 
together. He’s admirable at such times, is Mon- 
sieur Cardinal ! 


88 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ She came back the next day, the little wretch, 
and we were weak enough to forgive her. But when 
a child has played a trick like that on you, you see, 
you can’t have any more confidence in her. Mon- 
sieur Cardinal used to say to me, sadly enough : 

“‘You see, Madame Cardinal, she’s a child that 
will get away from us ; she won’t cheer our old 
age. She won’t be like Virginie ! ’ 

“ Ah ! Virginie ! what an angel ! I’ll tell you 
about her in a minute when I’m done with Pauline, 
and that won’t be long. 

“ She left the ballet, did Pauline, she has a house 
and horses and carriages, but she’s forgotten her 
family ! I only asked one favor of her. I said to 
her: 

“ ‘ Look here, your father has a political future 
ahead of him, so don’t, I beg of you, drag the 
name of Cardinal in the mud. Change your 
name.’ 

“ ‘ That’s been done a month, mamma,’ says she. 
‘ Pauline Cardinal — There wasn’t any style about 
that. My name’s Pauline de Giraldas.’ ’’ 

“Is she Madame de Giraldas?” 


THE LITTLE CARDINALS 89 

“ Yes, that’s her — and the Marquise Cavalcanti is 
my angel, my Virginie ! He married her, my dear 
monsieur, he married her ! She lives in a Palace at 
Florence — and she lives up to her rank — and she’s 
received everywhere — and she makes people respect 
her — and no lovers ! Monsieur Cardinal and I 
went to Florence to see her. We passed a week 
in her palace. The marquis was as nice as could 
be. He loaded us down with presents. 

“ ^ It’s a pleasure to receive presents that you can 
receive without hanging your head,’ said Monsieur 
Cardinal — ‘presents from a real son-in-law. And 
then, in spite of the political chasm that separates 
us, I must admit that the man has good blood, 
that he knows how to give, and gives nobly.’ 

“ We meant to come back to Paris at once, but 
just at the last minute Monsieur Cardinal changed 
his mind. 

“ ‘ Madame Cardinal,’ he says, ‘ suppose we push 
on to Rome ?’ 

“ ‘ To Rome, Monsieur Cardinal ! look out, that’s 
the land of priests. Do you think you can see 
such a place without getting excited ? ’ 


90 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


* Yes, Madame Cardinal, I long to see that den 
of superstition.’ 

“ And we went to Rome. 

“ All the way Monsieur Cardinal kept saying to 
me : 

“ ‘ I am perfectly sure, Madame Cardinal, that 
Rome will leave me quite cool.’ 

“ And, indeed, it did leave him cool. We saw 
all there was to see except the inside of the 
churches, because Monsieur Cardinal wouldn’t put 
his foot inside them; and everywhere Monsieur 
Cardinal said just the same thing : 

“ ‘ It’s overdone, Madame Cardinal, it’s over- 
done ! ’ 

“ Rome with all its churches and convents exas- 
perated him. 

‘‘*It’s a dead city, Madame Cardinal,’ said he, 
‘ a city that ought to be wiped off the face of the 
earth. Look you — I don’t know anything about 
Chicago, but I prefer Chicago. It’s alive, at least, 
is Chicago!’ 

After three days. Monsieur Cardinal had enough 
of it. It made him ill to breathe the air. It gave 


THE LITTLE CARDINALS 


91 


him spasms and dyspepsia. So we were about 
packing our trunks when a waiter at the hotel 
took us aside and said : 

“ ' His Holiness gives an audience to-day at four 
o’clock and I’ve got two tickets, would you like 
’em?’ 

“ ‘ My friend,’ says I, * if you knew Monsieur 
Cardinal better, you wouldn’t make such a sug- 
gestion.’ 

“ But Monsieur Cardinal interrupted me. 

‘ Excuse me, Madame Cardinal, excuse me. I 
wouldn’t have sought this meeting, but as the 
opportunity offers itself we’ll go to the Vatican.’ 

And we went. I wasn’t sorry to see the 
thing myself, but my uneasiness was about Mon- 
sieur Cardinal. He promised me he’d be calm 
and hold himself back, but I knew the violence of 
his character and I knew the pope was his bHe 
noire. 

“ We arrived and were shown into a lovely 
room, and someone told us we must kneel when 
His Holiness was announced. — Monsieur Cardinal, 
kneel ! — I says to myself : 


92 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ ‘ Whatever will happen ? Monsieur Cardinal will 
never consent to kneel before a mortal man.’ 

“ The door opened — they announced His Holi- 
ness. Monsieur Cardinal got down on his knees. 
To tell you the truth I didn’t know what to make 
of it. And the pope approached us. 

“ Ah ! my word ! at that moment what could you 
expect? I had a little religion in my childhood, 
and I should have it still if it wasn’t for Monsieur 
Cardinal — and then I’m not strong — I’m a woman. 
In short I was upset with emotion. I had tears in 
my eyes. It seemed to me as if I was taking my 
first communion over again. 

‘‘But lo and behold, all of a sudden, just when 
the pope was square in front of us, up jumps Mon- 
sieur Cardinal, never bows at all, but stares proudly 

at the pope, right in the eye, man to man ” 

At that moment the door of Monsieur Cardi- 
nal’s study opened. It was the elector. He had 
put on his soft hat. He had taken an old rubber 
tobacco-pouch from his pocket and was filling his 
pipe. A vague odor of tobacco and alcohol floated 
about his person. 


THE LITTLE CARDINALS 


93 


Monsieur Cardinal showed him to the door with 
the utmost respect, and said, bowing deferentially : 

“ At your service, my friend, always at your 
service !” 








> 


V 


.. ]■ 


J . 

'a* 


ni 




MADAME CANIVET 






f 


I 

\ 

I. 


/ 



I 




I 




UkL 








r 












IV 

MADAME CANIVET 

Five years later, once more at the Opera, Friday, 
May 28, 1880, about ten o’clock in the evening — 
we must be precise when we are dealing with mat- 
ters of such importance — I had gone to have a chat 

with my old friend Madame X , between the 

97 


98 THE CARDINAL FAMILY 

second and third acts of Aida. Before I entered her 
box I handed my coat to the box-keeper, but with- 
out noticing that obliging functionary’s countenance. 

My visit at an end I left the box, and lo! the 
good woman said to me, as she helped me on with 
my coat : 

“ Monsieur has been very well since the little 
visit he paid me three or four years ago? ” 

“ Visit ! What visit ?” 

“ Oh, yes ! up yonder. I was box-keeper on the 
fourth tier, and you came and asked me about the 
Cardinal family. I’m Madame Canivet.” 

Madame Canivet ! I remembered instantly. It 
was Madame Canivet who put me on the track of 
the Cardinal family the night of the reproduction 
of Don Juan. 

To go down to the third tier was the extent of 
Madame Canivet’s ambition at that time. That 
ambition had been more than satisfied. I found 
Madame Canivet now on the first tier. 

I congratulated her on that fact. 

“ Ah ! yes,” she replied, “ this is how it happened. 
I am concierge in the Quarter de la Madeleine. Well, 


MADAME CANIVET 


99 


there’s been such a quantity of changes of ministers 
these last days that I finally got one — a minister, I 
mean, — in my house. He spoke to the manager of 
the Opera and I came down to the first tier.” 

I congratulated Madame Canivet anew and took 
advantage of the opportunity to ask for news of 
Madame Cardinal. 

“ Madame Cardinal — Oh ! she’s well, the dear 
woman. Still in the country with her husband. 
But very sad, all broken up, because — just fancy ; 
you wouldn’t believe it — Monsieur Cardinal hasn’t 
got a place in the government yet.” 

“No place?” 

“ Not the smallest. She wrote me last week, and 
she says poor Monsieur Cardinal is completely dis- 
couraged, so much so that he’s talking about giv- 
ing up politics.” 

“ Oho ! and does Madame Cardinal write you 
often ?” 

“ Very often.” 

“And you keep her letters?” 

“ Piously, monsieur, piously. They’re so interest- 
ing, so touching! She’s a fine woman, Madame 


lOO 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


Cardinal, a woman who never knew but two things : 
her husband and her duty.” 

” I know, I know. I’ve always been very fond 
of Madame Cardinal.” 

” So has she of you. Why, in last week’s letter, 
she said : ‘ Now you’ve come down to the first tier, 
you ought to see some of those gentlemen very 
often. Give them my regards.’ And your name 
was among them, monsieur — the very first.” 

“ I am touched, deeply touched, and I would like 
very much to read that letter.” 

“ That and the others, too, if it will gratify you. 
I’ll bring them to you day after to-morrow.” 

And so, two days later, I had the honor of receiv- 
ing thirty or forty letters from Madame Cardinal 
from the hands of Madame Canivet. Don’t be 
alarmed. I have no intention of publishing Madame 
Cardinal’s correspondence entire. Four letters will 
suffice. Those four I will reproduce faithfully, 
verbatim et literatim, without adding or subtracting 
a single word. I have simply corrected the mistakes 
in orthography. At first I thought of letting them 
stand, but there were too many. 


MADAME CANIVET 


lOI 


These letters chronicle the history of the Car- 
dinal family during the last four years, and at the 
same time, incidentally, a little of the history of all 
of us. 














V : 


uuf-'ir- 




• ,•/ 








. I 

% 




r 




i 


I 









< . 




‘t 


♦ f 
i 



i 

I 


\ 


! 


I 

\ 


4 



\ 




'/^: v/j 


t 




V 

MONSIEUR CARDINAL’S 
PLATFORM 


vrr-1 
(* «, 


A 


if'" 






:r; 








Th.teftnetre jnv • L. Muller sc. 


s 

» 









I 


s ‘ 

r 

' I 

I 

M ' 


II 




"iB 
r i 

‘(I 

. |l 

'4. A' 

\ * tjJ 

(JTjR 


*'*j] 



1 




V 

MONSIEUR CARDINAL’S PLATFORM 

“ Ri BEAUMONT, November 25, 1877. 

“ You ask me for news of us all, my dear 
friend. The news is good, and not good. So 
far as regards health, we’re all well; Virginie in 
Florence, Pauline in Paris, Monsieur Cardinal and 

105 


io6 THE CARDINAL FAMILY 

I here in the country. But alas! we’re all well, 
each on her own hook. No more family joys. 
No more home life. 

“ Oh dear 1 it’s very hard to have been all your 
life a woman devoted to home and duty ; never to 
have loved but one thing in the world, your own 
fireside ; to feel that you are, at the same time, a 
wife and a mother ; to say to yourself: ‘ I have two 
girls and those girls aren’t here and never will be 
here to comfort my old age.’ 

“Virginie, married to the marquis, Virginie, a 
marchioness for good and all, continues to be the 
ornament of the first Italian society in Florence. 

“ Ah ! poor chick, all her grandeur don’t turn 
her head. Only last week she wrote me that 
she was the queen of all the fetes and pleasure 
parties down there, but that it didn’t amount to 
anything, that there was no fun in being a mar- 
chioness at Florence every day, and that she often 
longed for her family, and Batignolles and the 
Opera. 

“ She’s an angel ! she allows us six thousand 
francs a year. 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL’S PLATFORM T07 

“ She often talks of coming to France to see us ; 
but, although my mother-heart bleeds for her, I 
have the courage to discourage it. I wouldn’t dare 
to bring the marquis and Monsieur Cardinal to- 
gether again. You know there was always a polit- 
ical chasm between them, but, in spite of that, they 
had a certain amount of respect for each other. 
They insulted each other, but esteemed each other 
all the time. Aside from politics, their relations were 
cordial, almost affectionate. 

“ Alas ! there haven’t been any relations at all 
between them since what happened at Rome in 1875 
between the pope and Monsieur Cardinal. 

“ I’ve told you about that. In an audience at 
the Vatican, Monsieur Cardinal refused to bow to 
the pope and looked him square in the face, in the 
eyes without winking. 

“ They found out at the court of Rome that 
Monsieur Cardinal was the marquis’s father-in-law ; 
they wrote to the marquis from Rome, and the 
marquis wrote Monsieur Cardinal a high and mighty 
letter from Florence ; Monsieur Cardinal replied with 
a high and mightier one still, and all relations were 


io8 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


broken off, except — of course — the pension of six 
thousand francs, which was provided for in Virginie’s 
contract anyway. 

“ As to Pauline, she began to go wrong, and she’s 
kept on. She’s now the swellest kind of a great 
cocotte under the name of Madame de Giraldas, — 
and very often, when Monsieur Cardinal’s reading 
his newspaper, I see a frown on his face. Then I 
know’’ that it’s — I know there’s something about 
Madame de Giraldas’s fine house or her dresses or 
her carriages. 

“ Pauline is rich, Pauline is happy, Pauline 
don’t need her mother, — or rather she thinks she 
don’t need her mother. She makes a mistake — 
a girl always needs her mother, especially in her 
position. 

“ Pve been to see her two or three times on the 
sly, at her house on Rue Kepler. 

“ Ah ! such chic^ my dear, such chic ! And, from 
one point of view, it’s almqst flattering for a mother 
to see her child living in such chic, 

“ She has eleven servants ! — yes, eleven : — day 
coachman, night coachman, first lady’s maid, second 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL’S PLATFORM 


109 


lady’s maid, major-domo, chief cook, scullery-wench, 
footman, grooms and a tiger. And all so well set-up 
and so well trained, and not familiar. Real great 
folks’ servants. 

“ But think how much it all costs ! 

“ You ought to see how she’s pillaged and robbed 
by all those people. I ran my eye over the cook’s 
book, and I tell you, knowing the price of things as 
I do, it made me shudder. 

“So much so that I tried to make Monsieur 
Cardinal listen to reason. 

“ I said to him one day : 

“ ‘ Listen to me. Monsieur Cardinal — there’s hor- 
rible pilfering going on at Pauline’s. Let me go to 
Paris once a week. It’s a mother’s duty to keep an 
eye on her child, to prevent her being eaten out of 
house and home.’ 

“ At that Monsieur Cardinal turned white as a 
sheet ; he got up and, without saying a word, went 
coldly and opened the door. He makes me tremble 
at such times. He’s so solemn and theatrical ! After 
opening the door he stepped back a little way and 
said with a dramatic gesture : 


no 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“‘You may go, Madame Cardinal, but adieu — 
adieu forever!’ 

“ At that, as you can imagine, I flopped down on 
a sofa with my heels in the air, in convulsions. 

“ Abandon Monsieur Cardinal 1 Abandon him 
at this moment when he’s just girding his loins, 
as he says, for his great battle, when he’s begin- 
ning what he calls his rural apostolate, when he’s 
wearing himself out, body and soul, for justice and 
truth 

“ Abandon him, never 1 

“ Ah 1 my, dear, he has a hard time, I tell you, in 
his apostolate. He finds the peasants sluggish, not 
enough interested in politics. He wants to spread 
the agitation in the country districts, but that’s not 
an easy thing to do, for, except an old lady who’s a 
Legitimist, an old gentleman who’s an Orleanist and 
four or five former office-holders who are Bonapart- 
ists, everybody round here is for the Republic. But 
they’re republicans in their own way. Country re- 
publicans aren’t the same thing at all as the repub- 
licans of Batignolles. They’re all people who think 
that things haven’t gone badly these last four or five 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL’S PLATFORM 


III 


years, that the wheat keeps on growing and the 
grapes ripening, that prices keep well up at the 
Market, that they’re left in peace, that they’d better 
be content with that, and that when you have any 
sort of a government you’d better hang on to it as 
long as you can. 

“ No later than yesterday an old vine-dresser said 
to Monsieur Cardinal, who jumped into the air at 
every word : 

“ ‘ For my part I’d have liked to see Charles X. 
stay on. I’d have liked to see Louis-Philippe stay 
on. I’d have liked to see Napoleon stay on, and 
now I’d like to see the Republic stay on. I’ve 
always been for the government that’s in. I 
wouldn’t have voted to have the Republic, but 
now we have it, I vote to keep it. That’s my 
opinion. I’ve always been for keeping what we’ve 
got’ 

“ Such opinions as that put Monsieur Cardinal in 
such a state ! 

“ Monsieur Cardinal has always been for progress. 
He says France ought never to stand still, that she 
ought to keep going forward, forward. He says 


II2 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


she’s the advance guard of the nations, the pioneer 
of civilization. 

“All this, you understand, my dear friend, is 
Monsieur Cardinal’s statements and expressions ; but, 
by hearing him say them over and over again, I 
almost know them by heart. He’s worked hard 
since we came into the country; he’s begun to 
read the Latin authors — in French, of course. He’s 
made great progress in literature and politics and 
eloquence. 

“Yesterday he said to me: 

“ ‘ Madame Cardinal, I feel that I am ripe for 
power ! ’ 

“ If he says so, it must be so, for a modester man 
don’t breathe. If you knew how well he speaks 
now — and how long ! Such fine things as he says 
to me in private, and it’s all lost to the country ; 
nobody hears it all but me, and three-quarters of 
the time I don’t understand a word of it. 

“ What I can’t understand is, why they don’t 
come to Monsieur Cardinal and say to him : 

“ ‘ Take your choice — what place would you like? 
in the treasury or the magistracy?’ 










/I 













/ / 








-*1. 






m 

li' 











/ 


f’ 


I , 


> 


4 

i 



i 


, /* 





t 






i 


I 




/ 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL’S PLATFORM 113 

“ Those are the two things that would suit him 
best. 

“ We have the Republic and Monsieur Cardinal 
with nothing to do ! 

“ Why, what kind of a thing is this Republic that 
might make use of Monsieur Cardinal and don’t 
make use of him ? 

“ Here he is devouring himself, consuming himself, 
pining away, ready to accept any office whatsoever, 
even a well-paid one. 

“ From morning till night. Monsieur Cardinal 
thinks of nothing but his country, and from night 
till morning too, for very often he wakes up in the 
night to think about it. All of a sudden I’ll hear a 
voice in the darkness, saying : 

“ ‘ Light up, Madame Cardinal, light up !’ 

“ You see, some idea about reform or progress- 
has come into his head. He’s afraid that it’ll escape 
him, so he wants to write it down at once. As I’m 
on the side where the matches are, I light up. I pass 
him his little note-book and his little pencil, and 
there he writes away in the middle of the night for 
his country. 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


I14 

“ Why, last night I lighted the candle three times 
for three different thoughts that came into Monsieur 
Cardinal’s mind. The first was about the apathy of 
the country districts; the second about Voltaire; the 
third about a religion entirely without priests. When 
the matches wouldn’t light, Monsieur Cardinal flew 
into a rage and shouted : 

“ ‘ They do it on purpose, those fellows of the 
Left Centre, the Orleanists in the government, to 
bring discredit on the Republic ! To think that 
matches aren’t as good under the Republic as they 
were under the Empire ! ’ 

“ This match question is a very important one 
in the country. A Bonapartist in a neighboring 
village said to Monsieur Cardinal yesterday, sar- 
castically : 

“ ‘Your Republic doesn’t even know how to make 
matches.’ 

“ ‘ They’re not my Republic’s matches’, says Mon- 
sieur Cardinal, ‘ they’re Monsieur de MacMahon’s.’ 

“ He’s forever making retorts like that ; they 
come into his head like a flash, without his hunting 
for them or thinking about them. 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL’S PLATFORM 


I15 


“ As I told you, it upsets me to have them not 
employ Monsieur Cardinal. But it don’t seem to 
astonish him, 

“ ‘ If they don’t come to me, Madame Cardinal,’ 
he says to me yesterday, ‘it’s because the present 
Republic isn’t the true Republic. The true Republic 
is progress, uproar, fever.’ 

“ Monsieur Cardinal has studied history a great 
deal lately ; he says history’s a mine and it’s 
astonishing how much one finds in it. He’s dis- 
covered that there used to be republics long 
ago, and that those republics were always in an 
uproar ; that people lived out of doors, in the 
streets and public squares; that there was con- 
stant excitement in the — in the — the He 

used a devil of a Latin word that I can’t remem- 
ber, I’ll go and ask him what it was. He’s going 
to spell it for me, — F-o — Fo — r-u-m — rum . — It isn’t 
spelt the same but it’s pronounced like rhum (rum) 
the liquor. 

“ He tells all this to the people hereabouts. Mon- 
sieur Cardinal does, and you ought to hear him talk 
to the peasants. It’s fine, I tell you. 


Ii6 THE CARDINAL FAMILY 

Every day, from twelve o’clock till four, no 
matter what the weather is, rain or shine, he travels 
about the country. He stops and talks with the 
peasants, but he don’t use his usual language with 
them — that would be too much, for them, they 
wouldn’t understand it — so he makes himself small, 
he goes down to their level. 

“Last Tuesday he took me with him. We 
stopped by a peasant who was digging up his 
field. Monsieur Cardinal commenced a parley with 
the peasant. 

“ ‘ Well, my friend.’ 

“ ‘ Well, Monsieur Cardinal.’ 

“ ‘ So you’re turning up your field.’ 

“ ‘ As you see.’ 

“ ‘ And if your field wasn’t turned up, what would 
happen?’ 

“'Bless me! it would happen that it wouldn’t 
yield anything.’ 

“ ‘ That’s what I expected yoii would answer 
me. The country’s precisely like your field; it 
must of necessity be turned up, it must be con- 
stantly turned up.’ 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL’S PLATFORM 117 

“ ‘ Oh ! no, it ain’t the same thing ; my field needs 
to be turned up, but the country needs to be let 
alone.’ 

“ There’s your peasant ! They always stick to the 
same old path. 

“ But Monsieur Cardinal isn’t discouraged. He 
says that he’ll end by stirring up Seine-et-Oise. 
Meantime he’s stirring me up ! 

“ All this politics is dancing round in my head. 
I’m beginning to think I understand something 
about it. I read the political newspapers now, — I, 
who used to read nothing but the novels and 
crimes and accidents in my Petit Journal, as you 
know. 

“There’s something else that Monsieur Cardi- 
nal’s all worked up about — that’s the centenary of 
Voltaire. It isn’t till May 30th, next year, but he’s 
getting ready for it now. 

“ He’d like to give a lecture here at Ribeaumont. 
The title of his* lecture will be Voltaire the God, 
Monsieur Cardinal knows his whole lecture by 
heart already; and you ought to see how he’ll 
spout it at you. 


ii8 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ Now and then in the evening, after dinner, he 
repeats his lecture' to me. I sit down in front of 
him. I represent the audience. Monsieur Cardinal 
takes his head in his hands. He pretends to be 
collecting his thoughts, to be thinking up his first 
sentence. He isn’t really thinking it up, because he 
knows it all by heart, but he looks as if he was. 

“ All of a sudden he raises his head, pushes back 
his hair with a little quick movement of his right 
hand, and begins : 

‘ A frivolous, although profound writer has 
called Voltaire King Voltaire. The word king is 
an insult. I will not throw it in Voltaire’s face. I 
will call him Voltaire the God, apologizing for the 
use of the expression because of the superstitious 
veneration attaching to it; but it’s one way of 
purifying it, to apply it to Voltaire.’ 

“And he goes on with a long harangue about 
Voltaire as a republican. 

“ That must last an hour and he pretends to be 
making it up all the time. The lecture’s all written, 
and who do you suppose wrote it ? 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL’S PLATFORM 119 

“ I did, my dear friend, I did ! Monsieur Cardinal 
thought best to give me a share in his labors. 

“ He dictated it to me. For some time now he’s 
been practising dictating, even to several people at 
once. 

“ So, last Sunday, he sent for the mayor’s secre- 
tary and the schoolmaster. He seated those two 
men at three tables, and began to dictate to all 
three of us — at the same time — three different 
things. To the mayor’s secretary, a note against 
tyranny ; to the schoolmaster, reflections on the 
crimes of popes ; to me a memorandum about an 
army entirely made up of civilians. 

“ He got a little mixed up, to be sure, here and 
there — ^but only a very little. He walked up and 
down and sweated great drops. I really pitied 
him. 

“ ‘ You’ll kill yourself. Monsieur Cardinal,’ I says 
to him ; ‘ it’s too much work.’ 

“ ‘ I must do it — I must do it ! ’ he answered. 

“And next Sunday he’s going to begin again. 
All this frightens me. I wonder how a single 
human brain can hold so many things. 


120 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ Every night, after dinner, he dictates his im- 
pressions, his recollections — the journal of his life. 
It’ll be very interesting, but it can’t be published 
till fifty years after his death, when, as he says, 
passions will have died out. 

“ Monsieur Cardinal is also preparing his plat- 
form for the elections to the Municipal Council. 
He won’t enter political life till then. 

“ He don’t want to go too fast. The Municipal 
Council first — then the Council General — and then, 
no one knows — no one knows. 

“ Monsieur Cardinal says to me only last night : 

“‘You see, Madame Cardinal, with universal suf- 
frage anything is possible!’ 

“ This platform of Monsieur Cardinal’s will be a 
platform that means something ! — it will be the plat- 
form he’ll stand on all his life. It seems there are 
politicians who issue addresses, and then, when 
they’re once where they want to be, why it’s ‘go to 
the devil with my platform!’ Monsieur Cardinal 
don’t feed on that kind of bread. 

“ Drawing up his platform caused a touching scene 
between us. The other evening he says to me : 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL’S PLATFORM 


I2I 


“ ‘ Well/ he says, ‘ I’ve decided on my platform. 
Sit down, Madame Cardinal, and I’ll dictate to 
you.’ 

“ So I sits down, and he begins. Freedom of this, 
freedom of that. There were twenty lines for all 
the freedoms and then, at the end, the whole thing 
in a nutshell : ‘ freedom of everything.’ 

‘ Re-establishment of divorce,’ Monsieur Cardi- 
nal goes on. 

“At that, my dear, I jumps up from my chair, I 
looks Monsieur Cardinal square in the eye, bold as 
a lion, and I says : 

“ ‘ I won’t write that. Monsieur Cardinal, I won’t 
write that, and if you care anything for me, you’ll 
strike that horror out of your programme. When 
a man’s married a woman like me and had the luck 
to marry one of his daughters to a marquis that’s 
a millionaire three times over, he shouldn’t have 
such ideas. You’re my admiration, my religion, I 
worship you like a God, but my hand shall drop 
off before I write such an atrocious thing.’ 

“ Then he comes to me and takes my two 
hands. 


122 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


‘ Look you, Madame Cardinal,’ he says, ' I’m 
going to make a great sacrifice to please you ; I 
never bargained with my principles as you know. 
Well, for your sake, I abandon divorce, I strike it 
out of my platform. But let’s not waste time — 
let’s go on, let’s go on.’ 

“ He tried to go on with his dictation, but I 
couldn’t — my sobs were choking me. I was taken 
with a spasm of weeping. He sacrificed divorce to 
me ! 

“ I fell at his feet and kissed his hands. Haven’t 
I reason to adore that man ? 

I got over it at last. We went on with the 
platform. I wrote down whatever he wanted me to 
— Expulsion of the Jesuits — Suppression of all forms 
of worships etc., etc. 

‘‘ I might have had a few little remarks to make 
on that subject. You know I’ve always kept a 
little bit of religious feeling. I think that superior 
men, like Monsieur Cardinal, can get along without 
any sort of religion. But there are only a small 
number of such men — they’re the exception, the 
chosen few ; and it seems to me that for the others. 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL’S PLATFORM 


123 


the bulk of the common people, it would be a good 
thing to have the fear or the hope of something else 
after this short life. 

“ I deserve some credit for talking like that, for 
I had good reason to complain of religion once, 
my word ! It was a long time ago, under the 
empire, the day before Virginie was to come out 
of the crowd at last. It was a reproduction of 
Guillaume Tell ; Virginie was to dance for the first 
time in a pas de quatre ; indeed she had a little bit 
of work to do all by herself, with pirouetting and 
tiptoeing both ; that made me uneasy, for Virginie 
was better on her toes than she was in keeping her 
skirts filled out. 

“ I had already burnt a dozen tapers in a dozen 
different churches. Tapers are the things. Nobody 
asks you who they’re for, or what. You give two 
sous, five sous, according to the size, they light 
your taper and it burns for whatever you choose. 
But the night before the performance, I says to 
myself : 

“ ‘ Tapers ain’t enough for a debut at the Opera. 
I must have a mass.’ 


124 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“So off I goes to Sainte- Marie des Batignolles. 
I found a little vicar there who seemed in a great 
hurry. I says to him : 

“ ‘ Monsieur I’Abbe, this is for a mass.’ 

“ ‘ For when ? ’ 

“ ‘ For to-morrow.’ 

“ ‘ For a dead person ? ’ 

“ ‘ What ! for a dead person — not at all ; it’s for 
my oldest daughter, who isn’t dead by any means, 
because she makes her debut at the Opera to-mor- 
row, and that’s just why I want a mass said.’ 

“ * A mass for a debut at the Opera ! ’ 

“ And with that my little vicar swells up and 
turns his back on me, saying that there ain’t any 
masses for that sort of thing. No masses for that 
sort of thing, indeed ! 

“And why not, I’d like to know? Was it my 
fault, that I was born in humble circumstances 
and my daughter was in the ballet instead of in 
the aristocracy ? Any way, she’s in the aristocracy 
now ! 

“ She don’t need their nasty little Batignolles 
masses any more. She has her priedieu now, in 


MONSIEUR CARDINAL’S PLATFORM 


125 


red velvet, with her crest, in the flushest church in 
Florence. 

Write to me and tell me the news at the Opera. 
“ Your affectionate friend, 

“ ZoE Cardinal.” 



*< 





:<Y 








i ».' 


















VI 

PAULINE CARDINAL 






N 


•»,»V » •yl*’K W**. 


'>r 


*►• - 


• - 1- y ' ■‘’ , 


:.l' ; -JiA .^‘J4'^'‘. . 




VI 

PAULINE CARDINAL 

“ Ri BEAUMONT, May 12 , 1878. 

“ Oh ! my dear friend, such a week ! Such joy at 
first and then such sorrow ! Sunday was the elec- 
tion for the Municipal Council. Monsieur Cardinal 
was a candidate. He was elected ! You can’t form 
any idea of Monsieur Cardinal’s delight. 


129 


130 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ ‘ I am something ! At last, I am something / 
this is the first step ! ’ 

“He did nothing but repeat that. He couldn’t 
sit still. He went in and out, and walked all round 
the house. 

“ He wanted me to go and see the hall where 
the Council meets, to show me where his seat 
would be. That evening he couldn’t eat any din- 
ner ; that night he couldn’t sleep. 

“Two or three times he just dozed off, and then 
he’d wake up with a jump and begin again : 

“ ‘ I am something at last ! This is the first 

step /' 

“ I was awfully put about to see him in such a 
state of exciternent. I tried to calm him down. I 
made him some drink in the middle of the night — 
limes and poppy-tops. 

“‘You must sleep. Monsieur Cardinal,’ I told 
him ; ‘ you must sleep or else you won’t have any 
strength for the struggle that’s coming.’ 

“For there is a struggle coming, my dear friend. 
Monsieur Cardinal won’t be elected mayor, and he 
expects to be. The old mayor is going to have a 


PAULINE CARDINAL 


131 

majority again in the Council. He’s a great manu- 
facturer, retired from business — ^very rich — two or 
three millions. He’s one of those men who, accord- 
ing to Monsieur Cardinal, make a bad use of their 
money by scattering it round through the province 
without discrimination, giving to everybody in every 
direction, for schools and churches, libraries and 
hospitals. That isn’t charity, it’s ostentation. 

“ Monsieur Cardinal can’t meet him on that 
ground. He hasn’t got money by the shovelful. 
He has just a modest, honorable competence. He 
could afford to give a little something nowand then, 
but he never gives anything. It’s a matter of 
principle with him. He’d blush to succeed by such 
means. He wants to owe everything to his personal 
worth. 

“ Monsieur Cardinal has decided to take up the 
cudgels with the mayor right away. He’s prepar- 
ing an address for the first sitting. 

“ But don’t make any mistake. It will be a polit- 
ical address without seeming to be, because there’s 
a stupid law that municipal councils sha’n’t meddle 
with anything but the affairs of the Commune. But 


132 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


it would be a great pity if Monsieur Cardinal didn’t 
know how to get around the law after all he’s 
studied. It seems that getting around the law is 
the A, B, C of politics. 

“ Five days after the election, that is to say, day 
before yesterday, Friday, was Monsieur Cardinal’s 
birthday. 

“ Wednesday morning I had a very pretty, sweet 
little note from Pauline : 


“ ‘ Dear mamma, it troubles you to have me at vari- 
ance with papa, and I don’t like it either. Friday will 
be papa’s birthday. If I dared, I’d come and dine 
with you in the country. I could leave my carriage at 
Pavilion Henri IV. and take a cab from Saint-Germain 
so as not to shock papa. Tell me if I may chance it. 

“ ‘ Of course I should bring a present for papa. 

(( ( Write me and tell me what he’d like,’ etc., etc. 


“ The postman always hands me Pauline’s letters 
on the sly, and I read them on the sly, at the foot 
of the garden. 

“All of a sudden, while I was reading this one 
over and over, I saw Monsieur Cardinal coming. 


PAULINE CARDINAL 


^33 


There was such loving, wheedling words for me at 
the end of the letter, that I was all upset. I felt my 
eyes full of tears just asking leave to flow. 

‘ Is that a letter from Pauline ?’ Monsieur Car- 
dinal asked me, sternly. 

“ ‘ Yes.’ 

“ ‘ More scandal ! ’ 

“That was unjust. My tears overflowed, and I 
sobbed as I handed the letter to Monsieur Cardinal. 

“ ' Here,’ I said, ' read it.’ 

“ He took the letter, and after he’d read it, he 
said : 

“ ‘ I was wrong, Madame Cardinal, I was wrong ; 
this idea of giving me a present. — The poor child 
still has some right feeling. Come, as I’ve just had 
a great joy, I want you to have one too. I don’t 
want to know how Pauline lives — whether she has 
a fine house and horses and diamonds ’ 

“ ‘ Does she have them ! ! ! ’ 

“ That was a foolish thing for me to say. It was 
an outburst of maternal pride. 

“ ‘ I don’t want to know,’ Monsieur Cardinal 
continued. ‘ Between now and to-morrow I’ll think 


134 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


Up some way that Pauline can come here on my 
birthday. I’ll think it over to-night. I get to the 
bottom of things when I’m lying awake at night’ 

“ Sure enough, about two o’clock in the morning, 
Monsieur Cardinal shook me and said : 

‘“I’ve thought out how it can be done. If she 
chooses, Pauline can pass some time with us — a 
week or ten days.’ 

“ ‘ A week or ten days ! ’ 

“‘Yes. But let her come very simply dressed. 
We’ll say she’s a niece of ours — a shop-girl in Paris 
— that she isn’t very well, and we’re taking her in 
for charity. That will have a good effect. You can 
go to-morrow morning and fetch Pauline.’ 

“ At eleven o’clock the next day I was at 
Pauline’s. 

“ ‘ Madame has gone out,’ said the footman ; 
‘madame rides every morning, but madame will 
return at noon to breakfast. If madame’s mother 
will be so kind as to wait for madame ’ 

“ That’s how my daughter’s servants are trained ! 

“ I went into the small salon — I opened the 
window. I was so happy. I was going to see 


PAULINE CARDINAL 


135 


Pauline come home on horseback. I had never 
seen her on horseback ! 

“At quarter to twelve a riding-habit turns the 
corner of the street. It was Pauline! Mounted 
on a horse that shone like silver in the sunlight 
and followed, as she was, by a tiger with such a 
distinguished air I 

“ She came near ; she looked up, and, seeing me 
at the window, she cried out : 

“ ‘ Oh ! mamma I good-morning, mamma ; how 
glad I am 1’ 

“And remember, my dear friend, that I was 
bundled up like a scarecrow. I looked like an old 
witch. 

“ Oh I I tell you she has a heart, that child has, 
and not many in her position would recognize their 
mother out loud like that, in the street, before all 
the passers-by, and before such a distinguished 
looking little groom. 

“ She came in with her riding-skirt over her arm 
and her little man’s hat. A love, she was, a perfect 
love I 

“ She threw herself into my arms. 


136 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ ‘ Mamma ! mamma ! Well, is it all right for 
to-morrow ? ’ 

'‘1 told her it was all right for to-day if she 
chose; and I told her Monsieur Cardinal’s little 
scheme. I was a little uneasy. I said to myself: 

“ ' That isn’t going to be any fun for the little 
one, to leave her fine house and all her luxury, 
to bury herself in a hole with her father and 
mother.’ 

“ But, no — not at all. She was enchanted, posi- 
tively enchanted. To pass a week among the green 
fields would make her over, give her a good rest. 
She couldn’t stand any more of the winter that had 
just passed. It wasn’t always pleasant to be forced 
to amuse yourself all the time. It would be a 
pleasant change for her to come and be bored a 
little bit with us in the country. Then there was 
a lot of pretty little coaxing things, very prettily 
said, that reminded me of the Pauline of the old 
days. 

“ There was something else that tickled her to 
death — that was the disguise. To be dressed like a 
little bourgeoise ! 


PAULINE CARDINAL 


137 


She didn’t want to wait till the next day, but to 
go that very day, straight away, with me. She had 
a dinner-party that night that she hated to think of. 
This would help her out of it. 

“ Pauline sent for Hermance, her first lady’s maid 
— she has two — and told her to pick out the simplest 
and quietest of all her dresses, and spread them all 
out on a couch in her dressing-room. 

“ We galloped through our lunch and then went 
up to see the dresses. None of them would do. 
Any one of them costumes would have drawn a 
crowd in Ribeaumont. 

“ Pauline ordered her landau and off we went to 
visit the dry goods shops and milliners. 

“ Pauline bought two or three dresses and as 
many hats. She thought it was splendid. 

“ ‘ You’ll see how pretty I’ll be, mamma ! ’ 

She was struck of a heap at the low prices. She 
kept saying to the clerks : 

“ ‘ You must be wrong ; that ought to cost more 
than that’ 

“ I kept nudging her with my elbow ; for it isn’t 
worth while to say such things in shops. 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


138 

“ Our purchases all made, the carriage filled with 
packages, we were riding home, when Pauline cries 
out : ' And papa’s present ! What had I better give 
papa?’ 

“I had an inspiration. I says to her: ‘Your 
sister gave your father a bust of Voltaire once, and 
he often says he’d like to have now a bust of another 
writer of that time. I don’t remember the name. 
Ah ! I have it. Jean-Jacques. Yes, but Jean- 
Jacques what ? wait a minute. There’s a street of the 
same name — the street where the post-office is — 
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that’s it’ 

“ We went along the boulevard to buy the 
bust and packed it away in the carriage with the 
thirty-nine franc dresses and the thirteen franc 
fifty hats. 

“ Then we went back, and while Hermance was 
packing a little trunk, Pauline dressed herself She 
picked out a percale dress with little sweet peas and 
a straw hat with wild poppies. She was sweet enough 
to eat. We went down stairs and got into the 
landau, and we were just going to start, when Pauline 
strikes her forehead. 


PAULINE CARDINAL 


139 


“ ‘ Oh ! Mon Dieu, my dinner to-night ! I forgot 
all about it, and the one to-morrow and the next 
day I ’ 

“She sent the footman to call Hermance, and 
when Hermance came, she says to her: 

“‘You must write at once to the baron that I 
can’t go to-night, that I am going to see mamma in 
the country. And write the same thing to Monsieur 
Georges for to-morrow and the same thing to the 
marquis for the next day.’ 

“ ‘ Very well, madame.’ 

‘“Write a very nice note to Monsieur Georges. 
The two others you can write as you please, I don’t 
care.’ 

“We started. I was a little staggered. 

“ ‘ You tell your lady’s maid to write to those 
gentlemen ! ’ I says. 

“ ‘ Oh ! Hermance signs my name. They all believe 
I write the letters. .Hermance writes better than I 
do ; she’s been governess in a great family ; she 
never makes a mistake in spelling. But as for me ! 
It’s a little your fault, mamma. You were much 
more anxious to teach me dancing than spelling. 


140 


THE CARDINAL FAAMLY 


“ * Because I thought it was more useful and I was 
right. Would you be what you are if it hadn’t been 
for the ballet ? And see what spelling brings you 
to — ^to be your lady’s maid ! ’ 

“ Chattering thus on one thing and another, we 
reached Saint-Germain. There we shifted the trunk 
and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s bust into a hired cab. 
Half an hour more, and we were at Ribeaumont; 
Monsieur Cardinal opened his arms to his daughter, 
but he called her his niece, because our little maid 
was there. 

“ Such a dinner ! such an evening ! Family life ! 
My dream! 

“ After dinner, we rearranged the salon to hang 
Jean-Jacques Rousseau opposite Voltaire. And 
then I sat down to a game of bezique with Pauline, 
just a small game, at two sous the thousand. It 
made me ten years younger to play bezique with 
my child. 

“ Monsieur Cardinal watched us. He put his 
work out of his hands to do it. After dinner in 
the evening is the time when he writes the journal 
of his life. 


PAULINE CARDINAL 


141 

“He carried his good humor so far as to say 
he’d like to play two or three games with Pauline 
himself. 

“ Sometimes he condescends to play with me, 
he knows it makes me so happy. And it’s a great 
concession for him to play bezique, for there is 
one thing in the game that exasperates him, and 
that’s the fotir kings, eighty. There was a time 
when he wouldn’t try to get them ; he’d throw 
the kings away for the pleasure of throwing them 
away so as not to have to count them. But lately 
he’s found a way. Now he plays for the four 
kings, but he never says the words. He says : 
four whaf s-his-names, eighty. That straightens out 
everything. 

^ “ At ten o’clock I gave them some tea, and some 
little cakes that I make myself Pauline thought 
they were delicious. Indeed, she said something 
very imprudent ; she cried out : 

“ ‘ Oh ! mamma, how good these little cakes are ! 
I shouldn’t have any better supper than this at the 
Cafe Anglais.’ 

^ Hum ! hum !’ says I. 


142 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“As luck would have it, Monsieur Cardinal 
didn’t hear, leastways he made believe he didn’t. 

“ After we’d drank our tea I took my Pauline into 
her little chamber, with white curtains. I helped 
her undress with my own hands. I was in my 
element again. 

“You see, my dear friend, I don’t have the same 
ideas on the subject of virtue that make Monsieur 
Cardinal so great. If I hadn’t devoted myself, as I 
have, to my husband’s existence. I’d think myself 
mighty well fixed to be Pauline’s lady’s maid. The 
next night I put her to bed myself and tucked 
her in with my own hands. That amused her, 
and she says to me: ‘That’s like it was when I 
was a youngster, mamma, do you remember? I 
was still in the crowd at the Opera, and you and 
sister and I used to come home together after 
the play and have a jolly supper on six sous’ 
worth of chestnuts from the stall on Boulevard 
des Batignolles.’ 

“ Alas ! my dear friend, for that happy day 
there was to be no to-morrow. The catastrophe 
is approaching. 


PAULINE CARDINAL 


143 


“ But, to explain how the catastrophe happened I 
shall have to go into details. 

There are some cavalry regiments in garrison at 
Saint-Germain, a league from here. Sometimes it’s 
dragoons and sometimes chasseurs — just now it’s 
chasseurs. 

“ As the country is very pretty out our way, the 
officers often ride along the road that passes our 
house. 

“ That always stirs up Monsieur Cardinal a little, 
because the regular army isn’t in his platform. He 
don’t acknowledge but one kind of army — the nation 
in arms. In time of peace, no soldiers. Gendarmes 
and gamekeepers Monsieur Cardinal consents to, 
especially since he’s been a landowner in the country, 
where a crowd of vagabonds are always robbing 
your hen-roosts. But no regular soldiers, no prae- 
torian guards ! 

“ Those are the words Monsieur Cardinal uses, 
and I repeat them to you just as he says them. 

“ In war time, my word ! then it’s another matter. 
Everybody’s a soldier. Everyone has his musket 
and cartridges in his house. Those who have a 


144 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


horse go on horseback, and those who haven’t got 
any horses go on foot, but everybody goes. That 
makes an army, but an army that isn’t an army. 
It’s a torrent, it’s an avalanche ! 

“ That’s Monsieur Cardinal’s kind of an army ! 
It would be invincible. This is all fixed in Monsieur 
Cardinal’s papers ; he often tells me : ‘ I may die, 
Madame Cardinal, and everything is fixed in my 
papers.’ 

“ In a quarter of an hour every citizen should be 
ready for any kind of a war, foreign or civil. 

“Monsieur Cardinal hasn’t neglected the slight- 
est detail ; for instance, for the artillery he’s in- 
vented a plough that can be made into a cannon 
in five minutes. While we’re at peace, it’s a 
plough; war breaks out, it’s a cannon. The farm 
hand becomes an artilleryman ; every Sunday he 
practises two hours with his plough-cannon. It’s 
a wonder ! 

“ They don’t have a single new minister of war — 
and they change them every three months ! — that 
Monsieur Cardinal don’t write and describe his dis- 
covery. Never a reply does he get ! That don’t 


PAULINE CARDINAL 


145 


astonish Monsieur Cardinal. It’s what he calls the 
force of inertia in the departments. 

“ Now I’ll tell you why I spoke about the regi- 
ments at Saint-Germain. 

Day before yesterday, about ten o’clock in the 
morning, Monsieur Cardinal was reading the news- 
papers in his study. He subscribes to nine news- 
papers — it’s his one extravagance — eight of his way 
of thinking and one no end clerical. The last is to 
feed his anger, as he says. 

“ Pauline had gone out to take a little walk on 
the road, in a white muslin dress with a red rose 
stuck in her hair, and an old five sous straw hat 
of Monsieur Cardinal’s on her head. She was 
bewitching ! 

“ Monsieur Cardinal tried to stop her as she 
passed his study. He suggested reading his lecture 
on Voltaire to her, for as soon as he gets hold of 
anyone But the prospect didn’t tempt Pauline. 

“ ‘ No,’ says she, ^as long as I’m in the country, I 
must get all the good I can out of the country, 
don’t you see. I’m going for a walk in the fields.’ 

“ ‘ But do you know who Voltaire was ?’ 




146 THE CARDINAL FAMILY 

“‘Yes, papa, he was a little wrinkled old man, 
that they used to have a statue of in the vestibule 
of the Theatre-Fran^ais. They’ve put him up in 
the green-room in a jardiniere. A regular monkey’s 
head, but he don’t look like a fool. There, you 
see, I know who Voltaire is.’ 

“ With that she went out to walk, and I to 
the kitchen-garden to pick some strawberries. A 
country life, you know, and family life ! 

“ All of a sudden I heard horses trotting along 
the road. 

“ ‘ Confound it ! ’ says I to myself, ‘ there’s more of 
those monkeys of chasseurs ; they’ll stir Monsieur 
Cardinal all up, and disturb him in his work.’ 

“But the first thing I knew I heard shouts and 
roars of laughter in our yard. 

“ I looked out; Pauline was coming home followed 
by two officers of chasseurs on horseback. She’d 
met them on the road, and they both knew her, worse 
luck ! She tried to get away from them but they 
chased her into the very yard of our house. She 
had rushed up to the top of the steps, and from there 
she sung out to them, half-laughing, half-angry : 


PAULINE CARDINAL 


147 


“ ‘ Let me alone. Go away, go away !’ 

“‘Come and breakfast with us now at Pavilion 
Henri IV.’ 

“ ‘ I don’t say I won’t some other day, but I can’t 
to-day. Go away, go away ! ’ 

“ But they wouldn’t go away, and while I was 
hurrying up as fast as I could from the far end of 
the kitchen-garden, one of the two gentlemen began 
to ride his horse up the steps. 

“And then, all of a sudden, out comes Mon- 
sieur Cardinal ! It was just what I was afraid 
of, and I stood there as if I was struck by 
lightning, with my basket of strawberries in my 
hand. 

“ ‘ Back, messieurs, back ! This is my house.’ 

“ ‘ Come, papa, don’t be angry. I know these 
gentlemen.’ 

“ ‘ But I don’t know them ! ’ cried Monsieur Car- 
dinal, ‘ and I don’t want to know them ! Begone, 
messieurs, begone ! A free citizen’s house is no 
longer at the mercy of an unbridled soldiery ! This 
recalls the blackest days of our history. Once more, 
messieurs, begone ! ’ 


148 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ As he spoke, Monsieur Cardinal had his right 
arm stretched out in front of him. He was admira- 
ble ! Motionless as a statue, and in such a thea- 
trical attitude ! The two officers must have been 
comme il faut fellows, for they rode away without 
saying a word after bowing to us women. 

“ To be sure Pauline — she had stayed on the 
stoop — was making behind Monsieur Cardinal’s 
back the little imploring gesture that means, in the 
pantomime at the Opera : ‘ Go away ! Please go 
away !’ 

“ So they went away, but after they’d gone, a 
frightful scene began. 

Monsieur Cardinal was hard, too hard, on 
Pauline. Then she lost her head; she’s quick, 
you know. 

“ She told her father that those officers were very 
nice gentlemen, that one of them even belonged to 
the Jockey Club. She told him he had behaved 
like a vulgar idiot — yes, she said things a daughter 
ought not to say to her father. 

“ Monsieur Cardinal listened to it all in a sort of 
crushed way. 









i. 



PAULINE CARDINAL 


149 


“ I tried to stop Pauline, but I couldn’t — she was 
all wound up. She ended by telling us she’d had 
enough of family life, she wasn’t afraid to walk a 
league and she’d go and breakfast with those gentle- 
men at Pavilion Henri IV. And off she goes like a 
madwoman with her five-sou straw hat on her head. 

“ Then Monsieur Cardinal says to me as cool as 
a cucumber : 

“ ‘ I tried to give you back your daughter, Ma- 
dame Cardinal,’ says he, ‘but I didn’t succeed. 
Only one thing is left for me : politics ! Let’s go 
in, Madame Cardinal, let’s go in.’ 

“ We went in. 

“ He sat down and went at his newspapers again. 
His hand shook a little, but still he read. He 

has such energy, such force of will 

“In about quarter of an hour he looks up, he 
was quite calm again, and he says : 

“ ‘ You didn’t notice the gesture I made just now 
from the stoop, to drive away those praetorians ? ’ 

“ ‘ Oh ! yes, you were superb ! ’ 

“ ‘ Well, that was one of Mirabeau’s favorite 
gestures.’ 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


150 

“ What a man he is ! my dear friend, what a man 
he is ! Always thinking about his business, devoted 
to his political ideas, even at such moments ! 

“ Your friend. 


‘'ZoE Cardinal; 





I 






•4 • 


f ' 

I 



)' *' sV.' 








• '4 

’ , I 

* I 



■ 1 

j/*-* 



i 



« 

J 


t:’*4 


td- 



a: 



0 


VII 


VIRGINIE CARDINAL 


■r'i' 


\ 

( 


I 


i 


t 


i 



’ 1 









VII 

VIRGINIE CARDINAL 

“ Ribeaumont, June 3, 1878. 

“ Ah ! my dear friend, how much truth there is 
in the proverb that declares that there ain’t any 
roses without thorns, nor any pleasure without 
pain ! 


153 


154 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“It seems as if there was a fatality about it, 
and all Monsieur Cardinal’s political triumphs are 
bound to be poisoned by his daughters’ reckless 
actions. 

“ Six weeks ago it was Pauline. This time it’s 
Virginie — yes, my dear Virginie, so reserved and 
reasonable and prudent and distinguished — she’s 
made a fool of herself, a big fool of herself! 

“ However, everything’s fixed all right, thanks to 
me, her mother; but such days as the 30th and 
31st of May ! 

“ I’ll begin with the 30th. It was the day of the 
famous centenary, the day of the great lecture. It 
might have been about half-past seven or quarter 
to eight in the morning. I was just going over 
Monsieur Cardinal’s manuscript, because I’ve learned 
the lecture by heart, too. I was to be seated, in 
the evening, right behind Monsieur Cardinal in the 
middle of the platform, and if he happened to get 
mixed up, why zip I I’d have been there to prompt 
him. 

“I had just got to a passage against the priests, 
where he gives them a good dressing — although 


VIRGINIE CARDINAL 


155 


it don’t suit my ideas. — You know I’m a little 
behindhand. I’d belong to the church if I wasn’t 
afraid of vexing Monsieur Cardinal. 

“ Well, all of a sudden, just as I was in the midst 
of that fine nigging of the priests, there was a ring 
at the street door. I looked out — it was the tele- 
graph boy. A despatch ! Whenever a despatch 
comes, I think first of all of my two chicks. 

“ I wasn’t mistaken — it was a despatch from 
Florence, from my son-in-law, the marquis. 

“ In my maternal uneasiness I began to read it 
aloud, without paying any attention to Monsieur 
Cardinal, who was right there : 

‘ Virginie gone. Not alone. Took express, arrive 
Paris May go, one o'clock afternoon. I follow, next 
express. Arrive ji, same hour. Prevent Virginie 
going fartherl 

“‘I don’t understand!’ says Monsieur Cardinal. 

“ And I must go and sing out like the old fool I 
am : 

“ ‘ Ah ! I understand only too well. Not alone ! 
Not alone! — A mother’s heart is never mistaken. 
Virginie has run away with a lover ! ’ 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


156 

“ That slipped out of my mouth. I didn’t think 
of Monsieur Cardinal, how delicate and squeam- 
ish he is about his honor. He turned white as a 
sheet. 

“ ‘ I had two daughters,’ says he, ‘one that turned 
out well and another that turned out ill, and now 
the one that turned out well is beginning to turn out 
ill too.’ 

“ That sentence, written down, don’t seem to mean 
much, my dear friend, but when Monsieur Cardinal 
said it, if you knew how impressive and dramatic it 
was ! 

“Just then, by good luck, I had an inspiration. I 
took up the despatch again and pretended to read it 
over carefully, and then I said : 

“ ‘ I’m crazy. It ain’t that at all. It ain’t anything 
of any consequence. See here. Monsieur Cardinal, 
just listen a minute. This is what happened at 
Florence. There’s been some family quarrel be- 
tween Virginie and the marquis. At that she 
starts off — without so much as a by your leave — a 
hot-headed performance ! The marquis rushes off 
after her by the next train, to catch her and beg her 


VIRGINIE CARDINAL 


157 


pardon, — and he must be in the wrong, must the 
marquis, for he’s a dignified man, and he wouldn’t 
run after our girl if she’d run off with a lover, you 
know.’ 

“But Monsieur Cardinal wasn’t convinced. He 
was turning that despatch inside out, and he says 
to me : 

“ ‘ “ Not alone? not alone ?’’ How do you explain 
those words, Madame Cardinal ? ’ 

“ Then I had another inspiration. 

“ ‘ Not alone — why that means that Virginie has 
her maid with her. The marquis put those words 
in, so that we shouldn’t worry. And then, look 
here. Monsieur Cardinal, this makes it absolutely 
certain. Not alone — Pas seule, — look, is in the femi- 
nine, because of the e at the end. Well, if Virginie 
had gone with a lover it would be in the masculine. 
It would be Pas seuP 

“ This last argument made Monsieur Cardinal 
quite easy in his mind. 

“ I told him not to worry, to stay quietly at 
home, digging away at his speech, and I went off to 
Paris. 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


158 

“ I went to the station of the Lyon railway and 
asked which way passengers from Florence would 
come in, and they told me. Then I planted my- 
self right there in front of the gate and waited 
anxiously. 

“ I didn’t have long to wait. I saw my Virginie 
in the crowd, pale and trembling, with a veil over 
her face, hanging on the arm of a tall fellow, a 
regular lady-killer with great black moustaches and 
curly hair. 

“ She saw me, dropped the tall fellow’s arm and 
rushed up to me, shrieking : 

“ ‘ O mamma ! mamma !’ 

“ My fingers fairly itched. I was getting ready 
to give her a couple of cuffs — that was my system 
long ago at the Opera — when lo and behold my 
Virginie throws herself into my arms, bursts out 
sobbing, and says : 

“ ‘ If you only knew, mamma ; I’ve had enough 
of it already !’ 

“ Meantime the lady-killer came up, and he says 
in a sort of Italian gibberish : 

“ ‘ Coma, Virginie ’ 


VIRGINIE CARDINAL 


159 


“ ‘ Excuse me, monsieur,’ says I, looking him 
right in the whites of his eyes, ‘ excuse me. I’m her 
mother.’ 

“ ‘ Yes,’ says Virginie, ' this is mamma. Will you 
allow me to speak to her ? ’ 

“ ‘ Vera well. I go to look after ze baggazhe.’ 

“ And he went, and well for him he did, for if he 
hadn’t he’d have got the two cuffs. 

“ I took Virginie off one side to a bench, and I 
said to her : 

“ ‘ Come, who’s this clown ?’ 

“ Then I learned the truth, and horrible it was, 
my dear friend. 

“ An Italian tenor ! he was an Italian tenor ! 

“ To be a marchioness, to take up with a lover, 
and not to take him out of her own set ! It was 
too much to believe, but it was a fact ! 

“ While the fellow was off looking after his lug- 
gage, the poor little kitten told me the whole story : 
how bored she was at Florence ; that her great 
amusement was the theatre, and last winter there 
was a tenor with a beautiful voice and fascinating in 
love songs. 


i6o 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ She met this tenor several times at parties in 
the best society. The last time, at one of her 
friends’, a princess’s, she was alone with him for five 
minutes in a window recess. And there my gentle- 
man had the impudence to make a declaration of 
love, saying that it was all right for him to talk to 
her that way, as he had no hope, as he was going 
to London the next day for the season, and should 
never see her again. At that she was so upset that 
she fainted away right before all the first Italian 
society ! 

“You can imagine the scandal. 

“ The marquis took her away and made an out- 
rageous scene when they got back to the palace, 
carrying his cruelty so far that he did not stop 
short of accusing her of being the tenor’s mistress ; 
she cried out : 

“ ‘ It ain’t true ! that ain’t true ! ’ 

“ And then he flies into a devil of a rage and 
begins to beat her, as if she was so much plaster. 
Slaps and thwacks, if you please, with his open hand, 
my word ! — He left her in a dead faint on a couch 
and went out, saying : 











I' //#/' 





M 




' r -J 




i 



L .lier 






VIRGINIE CARDINAL 


i6i 


“ ‘ Understand, madame, I don’t propose to be 
the laughing-stock of Florence ! ’ 

“ She was left alone. She had a fit of rage too. 

“‘Ah! you don’t want to be the laughing-stock 
of Florence, don’t you? Well, you wait! just wait 
a bit ! ’ 

“ And she ran away, in her ball dress, after she’d 
taken pains to take off all her diamonds and jewelry, 
everything that was worth anything. She went off 
without a sou or a jewel or anything. 

“ She went to the tenor’s room. She said to 
him : 

“ ‘ Here I am, — you love me, I love you — let us 
go!’ 

“ So they started. But they were hardly in the 
cars before Virginie felt that she was in a fair way 
to make a fool of herself. Ah! it don’t take an 
intelligent woman long to go all round a tenor ! 

“ At last the tenor appeared again. He had had 
his baggage loaded on a little omnibus, and came 
to get Virginie. 

“ He was going to take the express for Boulogne. 
He was only going to cross Paris. But I had my 


i 62 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


child and I didn’t let her go. I was like a lioness 
defending her young ones, and when he had the 
cheek to say to Virginie : 

“ ‘ Coma, I haf ze leetle omnibousse.’ 

“ I answered him : 

“ ‘ You can just get into your little omnibousse all 
by your little self, and pretty quick, too, my boy. 
I’ll give you marchionesses to amuse you during 
your London season ! Come, off you go for the 
Gare du Nord, and quicker than that!’ 

“ He tried to kick, but I went on : 

“ ‘ No nonsense, or I’ll make a fuss. You haven’t 
got any claim on her and I have, you know. All 
the mothers ’ll be on my side, and all the police- 
men 1 ’ 

“A crowd was beginning to collect. Virginie 
was trembling like a leaf. She begged him to 
go and at last he got into his little omnibus all 
alone. He went off to take his train to London. 
I got into a cab with Virginie and we started for 
the Saint- Lazare station. 

“ As soon as we were in the cab, I says to 
Virginie : 


VIRGINIE CARDINAL 


163 


“ ‘ The first thing we’ve got to think about is 
not the marquis, but your father. We mustn’t let 
anything disturb Monsieur Cardinal — to-day of all 
days. To-night’s his lecture on Voltaire. It hap- 
pens bad, you see ; you’ve taken a bad time to get 
into such a mess. Any other day it wouldn’t have 
made so much matter. But we’ll try to get out of 
it all the same. Your father mustn’t suspect your 
virtue. That’s the main point. We must pile every- 
thing on to the marquis.’ 

“ ‘ But that will be lying, mamma.’ 

“ ‘ Oh ! there you are with your delicate feelings. 
Yes, it will be lying, but anything’s allowable when 
Monsieur Cardinal’s peace of mind and honor are 
at stake.’ 

We got home at last. I rushed into Monsieur 
Cardinal’s study. 

“ ‘ She’s here,’ I said, ‘ she’s an angel — and he, 
the man’s a monster. He beat her — beat her till 
the blood came ! ’ 

“ ‘ N*othing surprises me that a clerical can do. — 
Come, my Virginie, come, poor martyr ! ’ 

“ He held out his arms to her. 


164 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ She hesitated about jumping into them. 

“ ' You’re too good, papa, I did wrong ’ 

“ Mere delicacy, you know, absurd delicacy ! I 
cut her short. I pushed her into Monsieur Cardi- 
nal’s arms, and then I put a stop to the touching 
scene. 

^‘Monsieur Cardinal didn’t have any time to 
waste on emotion on such a day. He needed all his 
strength for the evening. 

“ So I says to Virginie : 

“ ‘ Come. Let’s leave your father — don’t excite 
him. The marquis will be in Paris to-morrow, and 
he’ll come and beg you from your parents on both 
knees.’ 

“ Such a day, my dear ! I kept running from 
Monsieur Cardinal to Virginie and from Virginie 
to Monsieur Cardinal. She made me uneasy, did 
Virginie. She had the ideas of a different class. 
She made too much of what she’d done, she thought 
the marquis wouldn’t forgive her, she wanted to go 
to London and join the other. 

‘“There’s a corps de ballet at Covent Garden,’ 
she said, ‘and I’ll join it. I’ll go back to dancing.’ 


VIRGINIE CARDINAL 


165 

‘ A marchioness on the boards ! ’ 

“ ‘ Oh ! no, mamma, I’ll take my maiden name 
again.’ 

“ ‘ Your father’s name! You think of dragging 
Monsieur Cardinal’s name back on the boards! 
Ah! never, not much! If you go to making a 
fool of yourself, you’ll do it in the marquis’s name 
and not in your father’s ! ’ 

“ As she kept bothering me with that sort of 
nonsense, that night when it came time to go to the 
lecture with Monsieur Cardinal, I just turned the 
key on her in case she should take a fancy to try 
some new freak. 

“Well, I got to the lecture room, and it was 
very fine, my dear friend, very fine ! All Ribeau- 
mont was there. But alas ! there was nothing but 
Ribeaumont. And yet Monsieur Cardinal had sent 
tickets to all the Paris papers. Not one came. 
There’s your Parisians and their contempt for the 
provinces ! 

“ Monsieur Cardinal had had the two busts of 
Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau put on the 
platform, Pauline’s and Virginie’s presents. They 


i66 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


were on two imitation marble columns. Monsieur 
Cardinal sat in the middle ; he had a very fine 
passage on that : that he was the bond of union 
between those two great men and was going to 
bring them together. It seems that, when they 
were alive, they couldn’t bear each other and passed 
their time saying hard things about each other. 
It’s only since they’ve been dead that they’ve been 
going along together and the two have made a 
pair. 

“ I don’t know whether Monsieur Cardinal’s lec- 
ture had much effect. It wasn’t effect exactly, but 
something better: astonishment, stupefaction. Mon- 
sieur Cardinal expected that. 

“ The night before, when he was reading over his 
lecture, he says to me : 

“ ‘ It’s too much for them. They won’t under- 
stand it, but this tirne I’m speaking to a larger 
audience, to France, to Europe. This is something 
I shall have printed.’ 

To have something printed, to see his name on 
the cover of a book — that’s another of Monsieur 
Cardinal’s ambitions ! 


VIRGINIE CARDINAL 


167 


“ Well, he was right, Monsieur Cardinal was 
right, as he always is. I don’t think they under- 
stood much of his lecture, but they applauded, and 
the less they understood the more they applauded. 
They were glad to hear things out of their range, 
above their heads ; it flattered them to tell themselves 
that he’d made that for them ; they didn’t under- 
stand, but it made them all the prouder to think 
he’d thought they would be capable of understand- 
ing things so much above them. 

“ By the way, the same thing that happened to 
them happened to me one night at the Theatre- 
Frangais on Rue de Richelieu. Monsieur Cardinal 
wanted me to see a tragedy. 

“ He’d been saying to me for a long time : 

“ ‘ Madame Cardinal, you really must hear a 
tragedy at the Theatre-Frangais.’ 

“ So one night we went together. It didn’t 
amuse me much, I must confess; but there were 
some long speeches that the actors spouted with- 
out taking breath — you felt that they said it well, 
you felt that there were fine thoughts underneath 
it. I was bored, oh ! yes, I was, my word ! But I 


i68 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


pretended to admire it all the same, with the best 
of them. 

“ After the lecture Monsieur Cardinal was escorted 
home in triumph with torches ; the band marched 
ahead and played patriotic tunes. 

“There wouldn’t have been a happier evening 
in my whole life if I hadn’t been thinking all the 
time of my little chick that I’d left under lock and 
key at home. 

“ I had the satisfaction to find her well calmed 
down and quieted ; her natural dignity was on top 
again. She saw that there was nothing for her to 
do but return and take her place in Florence, that 
she had no right to compromise her father’s name 
in love affairs. She had made up her mind to become 
a good, faithful wife once more, so far as it was 
possible. 

“ The next day we both went to Paris. 

“ My first idea was to make the marquis come 
and ask Monsieur Cardinal for Virginie again; but, 
on thinking it over, that plan seemed to have more 
against it than for it; they couldn’t have helped 
having an explanation, and that would give a shock 



V 










; ■ j. 


I 


N . 



4 


> 

,! ■ t 4 •^I'v f 1^ 

■ f.1 • I . 


/ »' ■- 


f* 




»> * ‘ ' . . & 




V 

« ...^4 


V 












VIRGINIE CARDINAL 169 

to Monsieur Cardinal, who knew nothing about Vir- 
ginie’s prank with that mountebank of a tenor. 

“So I arranged something else that was much 
better and succeeded splendidly. Ah ! such critical 
times as that give a mother ingenuity and cunning, 
I don’t care what she is. Virginie and I had our 
breakfast at a restaurant near the Lyon station. 
At quarter to one I says to Virginie : 

“‘You wait right here; I’ll go alone and meet 
the marquis. You mustn’t let it seem as if you 
wanted to jump down his throat. We must never 
admit that we’re in the wrong — especially when we 
are.’ 

“ At one o’clock I was in the station waiting for 
the husband on the same spot where I had waited 
for — the other one, the day before ! 

“ Ah ! I saw at once that we could do whatever 
we wanted to with the marquis, that he wouldn’t 
weigh an ounce. He turned pale when he saw me 
alone, and cried out : 

“ ‘ Virginie ! Virginie ! ’ 

“ He called her by her pet name still ! We were 
safe ! He was still in love ! 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


170 

“I’m nothing but a big fool, I know — I don’t 
make any mistake about that ; but I’ve always had 
one gift — it was my specialty at the Opera. I can 
tell instantly whether a man’s in love or not — so 
much so that other mothers often asked my advice 
about their daughters. 

Madame Cardinal,’ they’d say, 'you’ve got such 
a sharp eye, just come and look — we want to know 
what you think about it.’ 

“So then I’d go and look and I’d tell them: 
'That man is stuck !’ or else the other way: 'No, 
that isn’t real love, it’s only fancy.’ 

“ In short, I had a keen scent for such things. 
I know that that sort of thing wouldn’t happen at 
the Opera to-day, it would happen in society. But 
love is the same thing, always and everywhere. 
Whether it’s for a ballet-girl or a marchioness love 
always makes a man the same big idiot, and that’s 
a fact. 

“ I had the marquis : his first look was for 
Virginie, I had him in my grip. If Virginie had 
been there everything could have been fixed up in 
a second, without a word ; she’d only have had to 


VIRGINIE CARDINAL 


171 

show herself to get back all her power. But I 
didn’t dare risk it. 

“I was afraid of a scene before a lot of people. 
You see I’d caused a little excitement in the station 
with the tenor the day before, and if I’d raised 
another row the next day they’d have said : 

“ ‘ Well, well ! who’s this fat old woman that 
comes here every morning making a rumpus with 
passengers by the Florence express ? ’ 

“ I set the marquis’s mind at rest and told him 
Virginie was safe under my wing. I made him sit 
down on the same bench where I’d confessed 
Virginie the day before, and we had an explana- 
tion. It was a hot one, I tell you ! As soon as 
he knew Virginie was all right he undertook to 
be high and mighty with me. He set out to tell 
me that he’d never see Virginie again, that he 
came to Paris just to arrange things decently, that 
he was ready to make her a handsome allowance 
— and he repeated his famous remark about not 
wanting to be the laughing-stock of Florence. 
Then I let out at him. I had reason enough, my 
dear friend. 


172 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


‘ The laughing-stock of Florence, indeed ! My 
word! when your first wife was alive, that was 
when you were the laughing-stock of Florence ! 
And you came to Paris to look for consolation in 
the corps de ballet. She was bored to death, was 
your first wife, bored to death ! But she was a 
society woman and it’s a merit in them to have 
lovers. In our girls, it’s a crime I There’s your 
society ! Ah I Monsieur Cardinal was right in 
wanting to make it over from top to bottom. If 
you’d taken Virginie out of a convent, it would have 
been all right for her to deceive you, to have lovers 
by the handful ; it wouldn’t surprise anybody, it 
would be in the order of things and you’d invite 
her lovers to dinner ! And they’d be your intimate 
friends I But just because you’ve taken a poor girl 
from the Opera, from the ballet, she isn’t allowed to 
do anything — and because she happened to come 
from Florence by the same train with a beast of a 
tenor, you bellow as if you were being skinned. 
What do you suppose happened on an express 
train that goes twenty leagues an hour and paltry 
stops of ten minutes now and then ? I tell you, — 


VIRGINIE CARDINAL 


173 


I, her mother, — that nothing happened at all ! 
What’s the first thing to be done? To avoid scandal. 
That’s why you’re going to take Virginie back, 
and right away too. I don’t want scandal any 
more than you do, because it would come back on 
Monsieur Cardinal, and it mustn’t come back on 
Monsieur Cardinal. So if you don’t take Virginie 
back there’ll be a row. Do you know what she’ll 
do? She’ll go back to the ballet, she’ll go on 
the stage again, she’ll make a fool of herself, and 
not under the respected name of Monsieur Cardinal. 
Oh ! no ! never fear — but under your name, yours. 
When a young girl is married, her freaks don’t 
concern her family, but her husband. And that’s 
when you’ll be the laughing-stock of Florence!’ 

“ As I saw that this last argument touched him, 
I tried a little sentiment on him. 

“‘Virginie is within two steps,’ I says. ‘Come. 
You must open your arms to each other. She’s 
been to blame, perhaps, but so have you. It was 
the first time she’d ever been struck by anybody 
but her mother. That upset the poor child. Say, 
if it embarrasses you to go back to Florence alone 


174 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


with her, how would you like to have me go along 
with you ? It would be hard for me to leave Mon- 
sieur Cardinal, but I’ll do it all the same. And 
when the first Italian society sees Virginie come 
back on her mother’s arm. I’d like to know who’ll 
dare to kick! Your minxes in Florence would find 
they had somebody to reckon with ! ’ 

“ He was more and more shaken. He told me 
that if he went back with Virginie, he preferred to 
go alone with her, that he didn’t need me — in short, 
quarter of an hour afterward they were in each other’s 
arms. After that they took rooms at the Grand 
Hotel for a month. That was my idea, too. They 
had a suite on the first floor facing the boulevard. 
They showed themselves together everywhere, at 
the Bois and the theatres. They gave great dinner 
parties. Their presence in Paris was noticed by 
the newspapers in the Echoes of Society columns. 
The notices were copied into the Italian papers, and 
Florence thought it was only a fit of temper. 

“ That night I returned to Ribeaumont, and that 
terrible day came to an end in the tranquillity of 
the domestic fireside, beside Monsieur Cardinal, 


VIRGINIE CARDINAL 


175 


who was correcting the proofs of his lecture. But 
I don’t care, it was too much for a wife and a mother 
to have to endure at one time. 

“ Yours, with all my heart, 

“ ZoE Cardinal.” 







■i.A-'r-" 

* ■' •’« I , 











> 

I ' 





‘'*0 


V 

• k 
■ » 
»> 

» 


9 




• .» 


V • 


1 

* 'Vi 


« 








:v 



^ j t 










vni 


THE FIREWORKS 



i 

1 


f 




« 














VIII 

THE FIREWORKS 

“ Ribeaumont, May 5, 1880. 

“ More excitement, my dear friend; Monsieur Car- 
dinal’s life is a real drama. These last two years, 
since his famous lecture on the centenary of Voltaire, 

he’s been pining away, devouring himself, consuming 

179 


i8o 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


himself. He has sent in fifty petitions for office. He 
has written more than ten times to the deputy of our 
district. Never an answer! In his last letter to the 
deputy, he suggested the creation of a new office that 
would suit him well : Inspector-General of the Minds 
of the Rural Population. The duties would consist 
in arousing the country districts from their apathy. 
Nothing, not even a word to say it was received ! 

“ At last Monsieur Cardinal lost his temper. 

“ He took his pen and wrote the deputy one of the 
stinging letters that nobody else can write like him: 
that it had ceased to be a joke; that a man chosen 
to office under universal suffrage couldn’t have any- 
thing to do with such an indifferent creature; and 
that it was hardly worth while to waste one’s strength 
helping elect a deputy, if that deputy wouldn’t pay 
the least attention to the affairs of his electors. 

“ That time Monsieur Cardinal got an answer, 
but such an answer ! Here it is, word for word : 

‘ Monsieur: I advise you to dispense with writing 
to me so often. If you want to know why I don’t reply, 
go to the office of the prefecture and try to put an end 
to reports that are not favorable to you.’ 


THE FIREWORKS 


i8i 


Reports not favorable to Monsieur Cardinal ! 
You can imagine that he flared up at that. 

‘ I know where this comes from,’ he cried ; ‘ the 
Jesuits ! I recognize the hand -of the Jesuits ! They 
are intriguing against me, but I’ll foil them !’ 

“ He insisted on going to the prefecture that 
very day, and wanted me to go with him. He 
proposed to put his slanderers to shame before 
me. We had our pony harnessed into our little 
basket wagon — Virginie’s last birthday present 
to Monsieur Cardinal — and started for Versailles 
together. 

“ We arrived and got hold of an usher impu- 
dence itself 

“ ‘ Monsieur le Prefet,’ said Monsieur Cardinal. 

“ ‘ Monsieur le Prefet don’t receive,’ replied the 
usher, without raising his eyes, and kept on reading 
his paper, a reactionary paper. 

“ ‘ He’ll receive me !’ 

“‘No more than anybody else.’ 

“‘I beg you to be more courteous. You don’t 
know who I am.’ 

“ ‘ Who are you ? ’ 


i 82 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ ‘ Monsieur Cardinal, Municipal Councillor of 
Ribeaumont. A Republican prefect should always 
be at the service of the representatives of the people 
chosen by universal suffrage.’ 

“ My word ! the usher, without even answering, 
coolly began to turn his paper. No one has any idea 
of the impudence of those fellows as soon as they 
get a place. 

“At that Monsieur Cardinal broke out. He told 
the usher that he’d have him kicked out, that he 
would see the prefect. 

“ I tried to calm him. No use. He shrieked and 
stormed. 

“ A door opened. A little light-haired young man 
came out. 

“ ‘ What’s the matter ? What’s all this row 
about ? ’ 

“ ‘ I’m a Municipal Councillor,’ says Monsieur 
Cardinal. ^ Here’s what the deputy of my arron- 
dissement writes me. I come here to grind the 
slanders into dust’ 

“ He was very soft and polite, was the little light- 
haired fellow. 


THE FIREWORKS 183 

“ He shows US into his office, and he says to 
Monsieur Cardinal : 

“ ‘ I’ll look at the files in your case.’ 

‘‘ They brought him Monsieur Cardinal’s file in a 
blue cover. It was a huge thing. It contained 
all his petitions for places. Monsieur Cardinal 
recognized them at a distance, and I saw, — from a 
distance, too — a thick letter written on paper with 
Prefecture de Police printed on it. 

“The young fellow began to read that letter and 
Monsieur Cardinal and I both saw as plainly as 
could be that he was trying not to laugh. 

“ ‘ What is it ?’ Monsieur Cardinal asked him. 

“ ‘ Nothing, nothing, it’s nothing.’ 

“‘You laughed internally, monsieur. I am enti- 
tled to know why you laughed internally. I am 
entitled to know what there is in my file.’ 

“ ‘ It’s a confidential letter.’ 

“‘There can’t be any confidential letters so far 
as I’m concerned. I have lived in broad daylight, 
under the eyes of my fellow-citizens. I have fought 
and suffered for my country. I won’t go away from 
here till I’ve read that letter. Give it to me ! ’ 


184 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ ' Ah ! you tire me out at last ! ’ cried the little 
fellow. ‘ Here — read it — if you insist upon knowing. 
That’s why your petitions haven’t been answered.’ 

“ He handed the letter to Monsieur Cardinal, who 
said to me : 

“ ‘ I need my glasses. Read it, Madame Cardinal.’ 

“ ‘ No,’ said the little clerk, very hastily, ‘ there’s 
no need to make madame read it.’ 

“ At that Monsieur Cardinal said one of the things 
that pay a poor creature like me for all her sacrifice, 
all her devotion, all her abnegation. 

“ ‘ Madame Cardinal has been the faithful and 
brave companion of my whole life. I never have 
had and never will have any secrets from her. Read, 
Madame Cardinal, read.’ 

“ The little fellow made a gesture, as much as to 
say : ‘ Oh ! well, let them fix it to suit themselves,’ — 
and I began. 

“ Here are the horrible things I read, my dear 
friend, here they are : 

“ ^ Sieur Cardinal is a person of doubtfid moral 
character ’ 


THE FIREWORKS 185 

“ Indignation choked me, strangled me. I wanted 
to stop. 

“ Monsieur Cardinal, very calm and dignified, 
said : ‘ Go on — go on,’ — -.with the air of authority 
that belongs to him alone. I went on : 

“ ‘ And his means of support seem to be derived 
from an impure sourced 

“ I wanted to stop again, but I felt my arm 
gripped as if it was in a vise. It was Monsieur 
Cardinal’s hand — and he says to me in a firm voice: 

“ ‘ Madame Cardinal, I order you to go on to 
the end, without pausing.’ 

“Ah! my dear friend, when you haven’t seen 
Monsieur Cardinal at such moments you haven’t 
seen anything, you don’t know what coolness 
means, and self-control. 

“ I went on : 

“ ' He has tzvo daughters who have danced at 
the Opera. The older lives abroad in concubinage 
with an Italian marquis. The younger, under the 
name of Pauline de Giraldas, lives a life of pleasure 
on a grand seal el 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


1 86 

Yes, my dear, I had the strength to read those 
things aloud before Monsieur Cardinal. Virginie 
in concubinage ! — when she’s a marchioness as 
regular as any noodle in Faubourg Saint-Ger- 
main. — And Pauline living a life of pleasure on a 
grand scale! It would be mighty convenient for 

her to be on a long ladder, for 

“ Monsieur Cardinal got up out of his chair right 
after that foolish thing about the ladder, and said 
to the little fellow, with wonderful calmness : 

‘ I won’t stoop, monsieur, to discuss such slan- 
ders. Where does this information come from ? 
From the police — that is to say, from a commis- 
sioner of police appointed under the empire. That 
deprives the document of all value. I withdraw, but 
you shall hear from me, you and your government ! 
Come, Madame Cardinal, come 1 ’ 

We went out, and on the stairs I said to him : 
“‘Why didn’t you answer for Virginie? You 
could answer for Virginie.’ 

“‘Yes, Madame Cardinal, I could answer for 
Virginie, but I couldn’t for Pauline. In that case it 
was better to make a simple, plain denial of the 


THE FIREWORKS 187 

whole thing. It’s more dignified — it has more 
effect ! ’ 

“Would you believe it: when we got home, 
Monsieur Cardinal weakened, gave up for the first 
time in his life. 

“ He dropped into a chair, saying : 

“ ‘ It’s all over, I give up ! What’s the use of 
sacrificing one’s self for one’s country, scattering 
one’s affections to the winds, and acting the true 
Brutus toward one’s children ? This is my reward ! ’ 

“ I was going to take the ball on the bound and 
propose to him to come and have a nice little din- 
ner at Pauline’s. But he had already recovered all 
his energy and was stalking up and down the room. 

“ ‘ No, I never will give up, never ! Universal 
suffrage is at hand to avenge me. There’s an elec- 
tion to the General Council in three months. I 
hesitated to come forward on account of the expense. 
I was going to give way to the mayor, that Orleanist 
in disguise. I’ll make a fight for it and take it from 
him. I’ll resort to any means. I’ll be elected. I’ll 
think it all out to-night, and to-morrow I’ll have my 
olan all made.’ 


i88 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ Neither Monsieur Cardinal nor I slept that 
night. 

“ He was thinking up his plan and I was tormented 
and uneasy in my mind. I questioned myself, I 
went over my whole past life, and I said to myself : 

“ ‘ Madame Cardinal, have you done your duty ? 
Can it be true ? hasn’t Monsieur Cardinal’s life been 
honorable ? If it hasn’t, you, his wife, are to blame. 
You ought to have prevented him from living that 
way, if it wasn’t proper.’ But the farther down I 
went into my conscience, the calmer I found it. 

“They say there’s only one rule of morals — 
that’s nonsense invented by folks with a hundred 
thousand francs a year. There’s as many ways of 
being moral as there are people. Ah ! if Monsieur 
Cardinal had been an ordinary man, I should have 
been wrong ; but as long as Monsieur Cardinal was 
what he was, who would have the face to blame 
me for doing what I done ? The first thing to do 
was to make sure of Monsieur Cardinal’s peace. 
His character and his ideas were too lofty to stoop 
to the work of a petty clerk. He was too proud 
to resign himself to earn his living miserably in 


THE FIREWORKS 


189 


inferior places. He was only fitted for great places 
where there’d be something to manage, some one to 
order round. So it was his wife’s and his chil- 
dren’s duty to stir about and make him independ- 
ent, so that he could use his great talents, and 
that’s what we did ! 

“ The next morning. Monsieur Cardinal’s plan was 
all ready. 

“ The mayor was making a worse use than ever 
of his money. The past week he had married off 
one of his daughters, and the next Sunday he 
gave a great party in his park. Fireworks in the 
evening, and during the day the greased pole, sack 
races, pig races, candy passed round and handfuls 
of sous tossed to the youngsters of the Commune — 
the whole thing sickened Monsieur Cardinal ! He 
said they were infamous customs borrowed from a 
shameful period in our history, called feudality. 

Monsieur Cardinal’s plan was to give a great 
dinner to all the members of the Municipal Council 
except the mayor, the next, Sunday, and to have some 
fine fireworks, but not just for the children, for the 
men too : fireworks that would have a philosophical 


190 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


and political meaning: fireworks that would be 
an entertainment and a demonstration at the same 
time. 

“ Friday morning I started for Paris, I had a heap 
of things to buy for the dinner two days later, and 
the fireworks to order. 

“Monsieur Cardinal had written everything down 
in a note I was to give to Monsieur Ruggieri, 
marked : 

“ ‘ Memorandum for anticlerical fireworksl 

“ ‘ The bouquet at the close to be replaced by a 
set piece, a structure representing a primary school, 
and on top of the structure, in great letters of fire 
this inscription : 

“‘Down with the Jesuits!’ 

“I reached Paris. I went to Rue Montorgueil 
to order my fish and chickens, and then I went 
to Pauline’s. I found her all alone. 

“‘I don’t disturb you?’ 

“‘You, mamma? never. Pm expecting the 
prince, but that don’t make any difference; I’ll 


THE FIREWORKS 


191 


introduce you to him. He’ll be delighted to make 
your acquaintance.’ 

“‘A prince!’ 

“ ‘ Yes, and a real one; not a prince to laugh at, 
no, a prince of one of the oldest courts in Europe, 
and very close to the throne. He said to me yester- 
day : “ There are only two persons between me and 
the throne.” He’ll be here in a minute. You’ll see 
what a nice little fellow he is. Let’s play bezique 
while we’re waiting.’ 

“We were in the middle of our fourth game of 
bezique when all of a sudden the door opened. A 
tall footman in knee-breeches and silk stockings 
announced : ‘ His Highness.’ 

“ Yes, my dear friend, he’s that intimate with 
Pauline 1 And, no matter what you say, it makes a 
mother’s heart beat I 

“ Well, in comes His Highness. 

“ A real gamin. Not twenty years old, light hair 
and fresh cheeks. 

“ ‘ Monseigneur, this is mamma ! ’ says Pauline. 

“Ah 1 I tell you the little fellow’s mighty well-bred 
— for it wasn’t the first time one of my daughters had 


192 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


introduced me to a prince — that happened several 
times at supper-parties in the old Opera days, for I 
never used to leave my children except at the last 
extremity — but I never flattered myself, and I always 
noticed that the princes would have been just as well 
pleased if I hadn’t been there. They’d make a little 
face I understood very well, as much as to say : 
'Bah! the mother, weVe got to swallow the mother!' 

“ Well, this youngster didn’t make up any face. 
He was delightful. He bowed as a man should to 
a lady, whoever she is, and said with the funniest 
little accent you ever heard : 

"‘Dear Madame Cardinal!’ 

" And I thought to myself that he must be mad 
with love for Pauline to be as polite as that to me — 
because there’s another thing I’ve noticed, in my 
career as a mother, and that is that I could always 
reckon a man’s love for my daughters by the amount 
of respect he had for their mother. I’ve often said 
to Virginie : 

" ‘ Take care, my child, look out, that man don’t 
love you sincerely. He isn’t polite enough to your 
mother.’ 


THE FIREWORKS 


193 


But the prince was. 

‘ Pray, don’t let me disturb you/ he says; *go on 
with your bezique ! ’ 

“ We kept on playing. He stood behind Pauline 
and she consulted him : ‘ Would you throw that 
away^ monseigneur ? ’ And from time to time she’d 
let slip some little familiarity, like : *How stupid you 
are or "You don't know anything about the 
game!' And every time she had four kings, she 
announced : Four papas^ eighty — giving him a sly 
look — a delicate allusion to her condition. 

“ And they were both so happy, they laughed so 
happily when the Four papas^ eighty came around 
again ! Ah ! youth is beautiful ! and love is beau- 
tiful! 

For my part, I was in my element. I let the 
time go by. I forgot what time it was, — so that all 
of a sudden I raised my head and looked at the 
clock — Four o’clock. 

“ I had told Monsieur Cardinal Pd take the train 
at half-past four. He was going to meet me at the 
station at Saint-Germain with our little pony-cart. 
Make Monsieur Cardinal wait — never on my life ! 


194 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


Not even to stay with a prince, because, after all, a 
prince is only a prince, a man who owes everything 
to his birth, while Monsieur Cardinal’s a man who 
owes nothing to anybody but himself. 

“ I had forgot all about the fireworks and I didn’t 
have time to go to Monsieur Ruggieri’s. 

“I told Pauline about it. That was where the 
prince showed what a charming man he was. He 
undertook to do it for me. But I had to tell him, 
and him the heir of a royal family, that our fire- 
works was to have a slap at the Jesuits, and I 
gave him Monsieur Cardinal’s note. He read it 
and thought it was very original, very original. 

“ There was another thing that embarrassed me ; 
that was about the price. 

“ It made me a little sheepish to let that young 
fellow pay for fireworks that could hardly suit his 
ideas. But as soon as I started to open my mouth 
on the subject, Pauline says : 

“‘You’re a great stupid, mamma; let the prince do 
it. It’s nothing of any consequence, that silly thing.’ 

“ I didn’t insist, in the first place because I’ve 
always thought it was absurd to pay yourself for 



















\ 

n 


4 









I 













THE FIREWORKS 


195 


things somebody else was willing to pay for. That’s 
one of the principles I taught my little girls. 

“ I went back to Ribeaumont. I found Monsieur 
Cardinal at the station. I told him I had ordered 
everything, chickens, fish, cakes, fireworks, and that 
it would all arrive Sunday morning. And arrive 
it did. 

“ Two of Monsieur Ruggieri’s men brought down 
the fireworks — splendid fireworks that filled a whole 
wagon and must have cost at least a thousand 
francs. 

Monsieur Cardinal came down to the garden a 
minute to show the place where the fireworks was 
to be set up ; but he was very busy, was Monsieur 
Cardinal, and he went right back to his study, 
because he’d had another idea in the night. 

“ His idea was to give a toast in the English 
fashion at the dinner — to make a spitche — that’s the 
word they use over there. Monsieur Cardinal knows 
a heap of words in all languages now. This 
spitche, which he was going to deliver off-hand in 
the evening. Monsieur Cardinal was writing out, 
and then he’d got to learn it by heart. It seems 


196 THE CARDINAL FAMILY 

that they have a way of talking over in England 
that isn’t like ours. It isn’t eloquence, it’s con- 
versation, humourre^ another word Monsieur Cardi- 
nal used, for he’d like to introduce that kind of 
political talks m France. 

“At half-past six they sat down to dinner. Every- 
thing went off splendidly. 

“ The dinner was fine : fish, chickens, everything 
was all right. 

“ Monsieur Cardinal’s spitche made a tremendous 
hit, and at half-past nine they went down into the 
garden for the fireworks. They began to go off in 
great shape. Pin-wheels, Bengal fire, rockets, gush- 
ing fountains, nothing missed fire; and you know, 
there’s generally a lot of things that do miss in a 
fireworks’ show. The weather was all anyone could 
ask: no moon and no wind. All of a sudden a 
building of fire appeared among the trees. It was 
the set piece. You could see the pillars and a 
door. 

“ Everybody exclaimed : 

“ ‘ Oh ! how lovely it is ! How much better than 
the mayor’s ! ’ 


THE FIREWORKS 


197 


“ ‘ Wait ! ’ cried Monsieur Cardinal, * wait, this is 
nothing ! Wait till you see the pediment ! wait for 
the inscription ! ’ 

“ The pediment appeared ; the inscription lighted 
up, but what a frightful thing ! 

“ What do you suppose was written in letters of 
fire on top of the building ? Instead of : ^Down 
with the Jesuits ! ’ it was 

“Vive l’Empereur! 

“ How did it happen ? I don’t know yet. Was 
it a joke of the little prince’s, did he think it 
would be fun to send us some Bonapartist fire- 
works, instead of anticlerical ? I can’t believe that 
of such a distinguished young man who’s so fond 
of Pauline. Was it a mistake of Monsieur Rug- 
gieri’s ? It’s a great big establishment where they 
must have fireworks to suit all sorts of opinions. 
They might have made a slight mistake. Or it 
may be, they wanted to work off some old thing 
they had in stock. They must have had lots of 
fireworks on hand at the fall of the Empire. That 
wouldn’t be very nice of them, and come to think 


198 THE CARDINAL FAMILY 

of it, it can’t be so, for they must have thought we’d 
notice it. 

“ However, when they saw those words blazing 
out : 

' Vive l’Empereur! 

the crowd began to yell and hiss. They ain’t 
Bonapartists in that region. 

“ Monsieur Cardinal threw himself into the mid- 
dle of the fire like a lion. 

“ The workmen yelled to him : 

‘“Don’t go near it! Don’t go near it! You’re 
not used to it, you’ll get hurt ! ’ 

“But he didn’t hear anything. He was crazy 
with rage. He tried to upset the whole concern. 
I rushed into the flames after him. I pulled him 
out. The ends of my false hair, my curls and the 
bows of my cap were all singed. 

“ All the guests went away in a rage. Monsieur 
Cardinal ran after them. 

“ ‘ Come back ! come back ! ’ he shouted. ‘ Let 
me explain. It ought to have been : “ Down with 
the Jesuits 

“ But nobody would listen. 


THE FIREWORKS 


199 


“ So Monsieur Cardinal and I went back alone. 
He fell in a heap on a bench. Then, when I saw 
him in that state of collapse, I mustered up some 
courage for once in my life, and I gave Monsieur 
Cardinal a little talking to. 

“ ‘ Listen to me,’ says I, ' if this is the end of your 
political ambition, perhaps this mistake about the 
fireworks is a blessing from Heaven. Perhaps it’s 
written on high that you weren’t cut out for politics. 
Oh ! I know you don’t believe in things being 
written on high, but I do, myself. I’m just weak 
enough. I tell you. Monsieur Cardinal, you’re too 
stiff-backed in your principles. Politics is made for 
clowns, for merry-Andrews, for men who change 
their opinions every week. It isn’t made for you, 
because you never change yours. 

“ ‘ Who’s the rhan that ought to have got every- 
thing? You! And who’s the man that’s got 
nothing? You! Under the Empire you used to 
say : 

“ ‘ “ After the Empire, I shall get there ! ” 

“ ‘ The Empire fell, and you didn’t get anywhere. 

“ ‘ Then you said : 


200 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


“ ‘ “ After MacMahon it will be my turn.” 

‘‘ ' And what did they give you after MacMahon ? 
Nothing at all. You consoled yourself by saying : 

“ ‘ “ I can’t expect anything from those fellows of 
the Left Centre. But when Gambetta’s at the head 
of affairs I shall have all I want ! ” 

“ ‘ Well, Gambetta’s there, and what comes to 
your pocket ? Insults from his office-holders ! All 
these people are the same, you see, whether their 
name’s Napoleon or MacMahon or Gambetta. They 
all have the same routine and the same prejudices. 
They’ll never understand the greatness of your 
character. They’ll always be throwing your daugh- 
ters at your head. Your daughters! your daugh- 
ters I Well, perhaps they’re right after all. Come, 
Monsieur Cardinal, let me tell you what I think 
once for all. I have common feelings, to be sure, 
bourgeois ideas, but this is what I think : that your 
true career isn’t politics; your true career’s your 
daughters ! ’ 

“There I stopped, frightened at what I’d said. 
But Monsieur Cardinal had become quiet, almost 
smiling, and he said, good-naturedly : 


THE FIREWORKS 


201 


“ ‘ I don’t blame you. Madame Cardinal, you 
can’t understand all your words mean — but nothing 
shall get the better of my energy. Everything 
turns against me, even my fireworks. Monsieur 
Gambetta’s government has no use for me? Very 
good — I’ll be patient. I’ll wait. Universal suffrage 
is a fact. My turn will come.’ 

“Just as Monsieur Cardinal finished speaking, I 
saw the sergeant of the gendarmes coming. 

“ ‘ I am very sorry for what has happened,’ he says, 
‘but I’m obliged to make my report. I’ve just con- 
sulted my Pocket Guide for the Gendarme. There’s 
an article in it against seditious emblems. Your fire- 
works comes under the law. You’ll be prosecuted.’ 

“ Prosecuted! We needed nothing but that ! That 
capped the climax ! But while I was wringing my 
hands, what do I see? Monsieur Cardinal’s face 
lights up. 

“ ‘ Make your report, my friend,’ he says very 
softly to the sergeant, ‘ make your report 1 ’ 

“ Then he leads me aside. 

“ ‘ A prosecution, Madame Cardinal, a political 
prosecution I — Why, it’s a pedestal ! I am saved I 


202 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


My fortune is made. I will defend myself, because 
it’s a downright swindle to hire a lawyer in such 
cases. The lawyer gets the whole benefit of the 
prosecution,- makes a reputation over his client’s 
back, and the client has to take the full penalty. 
And you have to pay the fellows, too, so that they 
get everything at once — money and honor. But 
they sha’n’t have anything this time. I’ll be my own 
lawyer! I’ll begin this very night to prepare my 
defence.’ 

“ And he’s been working at his defence since day 
before yesterday. This is how it’s going to begin : 

“ ' Gentlemen, I meant to have some anticleri- 
cal fireworks; an unscrupulous manufacturer, who 
wanted to work off a lot of unseasonable goods, did 
not blush,’ etc., etc. 

“But he’s beginning to be uneasy, because he 
hasn’t seen anything of the summons. 

“ Every time the bell rings he rushes to the door 
and opens it himself : 

“ ' There it is ! It’s my summons 1 ’ 

“ Alas I no, it’s the butcher, or the baker, but not 
the summons. 


THE FIREWORKS 


203 


“Monsieur Cardinal is in a fever, and just a 
minute ago, he said to me, in a bitter tone : 

“ ‘ Don’t they even mean to prosecute me ? ’ 

“ Your old friend, 

“ZoE Cardinal.” 





r 


r ' 


\ 

J 




I 



• I 


« 




, s . 


< 




I 



'l I 

I 


I 


1 


• I 

> 1 


t 


*1 

( 



i 


t 

1 



{ 

t . 








LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE CARDINAL FAMILY 


PAGE 

MONSIEUR CARDINAL Fronts. 

I 

MADAME CARDINAL 32 

MONSIEUR CARDINAL 52 

THE LITTLE CARDINALS JO 

THE LITTLE CARDINALS 78 

MONSIEUR cardinal’s TLATFORM II 2 

PAULINE CARDINAL I48 

VIRGINIE CARDINAL 160 

I 

VIRGINIE CARDINAL 1 68 

THE FIREWORKS 194 


205 


206 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 




EN-T^TES ET CULS-DE-^LAMPE 

T ITLE- PAGE. — Danseuses. 

Chapter I. — En-tUe. A stout woman, carelessly dressed, 
an old plaid shawl on her shoulders and huge silver 
spectacles on her nose, was standing perfectly still, 
leaning against a post in the wings at the Opera . . . 

Cul-de-lampe. At that moment, Madame Cardinal inter- 
rupted herself and trotted off to the stage, to return 
holding Pauline by the ear 

Chapter II. — En-Ute. The monitor of the ballet was walk- 
ing in front of me with a bell in his hand, ringing it 
violently, and crying in a drawling tone : “ To the stage, 
mesdames, to the stage ! The second act is beginning ! ” 

Cul-de-lampe. In the second he was still in his judges’ 
gown, but he wasn’t alone; I was leaning on his arm, 
he was showing me the Official of the 19th and smiling 
at me — that was the husband ! 

Chapter III. — En-t^te. I sat down on a bench beside 
Madame Canivet, and we settled ourselves for a little 
gossip. On the other end of the bench a municipal 
guard was sleeping 

Cul-de-lampe. Monsieur Cardinal showed the elector 
to the door with the utmost respect, and said, bowing 
deferentially : “ At your service, my friend, always at 
your service ! ” 


PAGE 


34 


37 


60 


63 


93 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 207 

PAGE 

Chapter IV. — En-tHe. The box of Madame de X . . . . 97 

Cul-de-lampe. Leaving the Opera loi 

Chapter V. — En-tHe. All of a sudden ITl hear a voice in 
the darkness, saying ; “ Light up, Madame Cardinal, light 
up ! ” You see, some idea about reform or progress has 
come into his head. He’s afraid that it’ll escape him, so 
he wants to write it down at once 105 

Cul-de-lampe. And with that my little vicar swells up 
and tmns his back on me, saying that there ain’t any 
masses for that sort of thing. No masses for that sort 
of thing, indeed! 125 

Chapter VI. — En-tHe. Madame rides every morning ... 129 

Cul-de-lampe. And off she goes like a mad woman with 
her five-sou straw hat on her head 150 

Chapter VII. — En-tHe. I saw my Virginie in the crowd, 
pale and trembling, hanging on the arm of a tall black 
fellow, a regular lady-killer, with great black mous- 
taches and curly hair 153 

Cul-de-lampe. In short, quarter of an hour afterwards 
they were in each other’s arms 175 

Chapter VIII. — En-t^te. We had our pony harness to our 
little basket wagon — Virginie’ s last birthday present to 
Monsieur Cardinal — and started for Versailles together . 179 

Cul-de-lampe. But, while I was wringing my hands, 
what do I see? Monsieur Cardinal’s face lights up. 

“ Make your report, my friend,” he says very softly to 
the sergeant, “ make your report ! ” 203 



MKk 


4 

4 


I 


* 

i 


■s 


{ 






"iM 


I. 


■-r^4 ^ 










r « I 

“|l 


mr- 




A’ WWTWL .f ^ 

"V 









.■ >’*■■■. 

itti 

» 


c« 

ff • 

'i 

S^^^*** i*V 

I*’ A' ^ ^ 


p 


* « • 




/I 


4 


a 






"•i< #* 

ia . * 


.■.''5'iJ ‘;^' 








^ ''■ 


.ii' 


' • v^,' 


’ * iT| 


• ‘: 




rw‘ 




^ n’ 


« 


I i fl { 




'*ir"v 




, **• * •» 


r’-^‘ 


w 










! r n 


!>' 




.<■ 


't ] 


a’ 


r'ic; 









1 

















